


Tales From Panem

by sabaceanbabe



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M, Gen, Hayhanna, M/M, Odesta, everlark
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-02
Updated: 2016-03-21
Packaged: 2017-12-31 06:30:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 87
Words: 29,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1028350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabaceanbabe/pseuds/sabaceanbabe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hunger Games drabbles and vignettes</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Primrose

**Author's Note:**

> This is a compilation of drabbles and vignettes written from prompts left at Tumblr and Live Journal. Nothing worth being a fic of its own, but still maybe worth reading.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Primrose Everdeen, after the reaping for the 74th Games

Prim finally stopped running when she hit the Meadow. Her lungs hurt and it was hard to pull in enough air, but if she could have, she would have kept running. Anything to escape the fact that Katniss was gone, that Peacekeepers had taken her to the Capitol for the Games.

“It should have been me,” Prim whispered. There in the Meadow, with no one to see, Prim slipped to her knees in the soft, cool green and let herself cry until there were no more tears left for her to shed. When the storm was past, she opened her eyes and wiped her face with the tail of her shirt.

“Tuck your shirt in, Little Duck,” she said, hearing the echo of her sister’s voice in her head. How many times had Katniss told her to do just that? How many times had she called her that pet name? “Oh, Katniss, you have to come back. We need you.”

Looking around the Meadow, Prim’s gaze fell on a splash of yellow beyond the fence. She hadn’t realized she was so close to that barrier between District 12 and what lay beyond it, that place where Katniss went almost every day to hunt. She approached the fence through the long, waving grasses, feather soft and razor sharp at once against her bare legs and arms, until she could see the yellow splash more clearly. It was a primrose, pretty and sweet and just out of her reach, but it felt like a sign.

Turning around in a circle, making sure there was still no one there, no one to see her tiny act of rebellion, Prim stopped to listen for the hum of electricity. When she heard nothing, she took a deep breath and cautiously, carefully clasped her fingers around one of the fence wires. Lifting it, she stepped through the fence and hurried to the flower. Rather than picking it, she dug through the grass and dirt, ignoring the discomfort of the moist earth jammed under her nails, until she could free enough of the plant and its roots that she could take it home with her.

If the little primrose lived, then maybe her sister would live, too.


	2. Jealousy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finnick Odair, pre-trilogy

The merry sound of a woman laughing drew Finnick’s attention and he glanced up from his work. Scrubbing blood and fish guts from the deck was a slimy, smelly business, so he was glad of the distraction. As he watched, a young man slung his wife or girlfriend over his shoulder while she shrieked with laughter, kicking out with her legs and slapping at his butt, demanding that he put her down.

From his distance, the woman looked like Annie and a wave of jealousy washed over Finnick leaving him feeling light-headed and a little sick. The couple was happy and obviously in love and he abruptly turned his back on them, attacking the deck so ferociously that his scrub brush slipped from his hand to skitter across the deck; it only missed shooting out into the water by the width of a piece of rope.

Finnick took a moment to collect himself before pushing up from his knees to retrieve the brush. He’d give almost anything to walk freely with Annie, just like that couple, to tease her and make her laugh where all of Panem could see, but they couldn’t risk it. If Snow ever found out about them, he’d destroy what little they had.

If Finnick lost Annie, he would himself be lost.


	3. I Have Something to Tell You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Annie during Mockingjay

Annie sits in the middle of their tiny bed. She rests her head on her knees, her arms wrapped around them, and she rocks. To and fro. To and fro. _We never really talked much about this. What if he doesn’t want it? What if—_

“Annie? Is something wrong?”

She never heard the door open, yet here he is. Her heart thumps in her chest as his voice pools in the pit of her stomach, wrapping the new life they’ve created in love and something like safety.

She looks up; her cheeks are wet. “Finnick, I have to tell you something…”


	4. I Volunteer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gloss, pre-trilogy

“I volunteer as tribute.” Gloss’ voice is strong as he steps forward. The boy whose place he’s taking is only fourteen, not fit to serve their district in the Games. Not yet, anyway. Looking up toward the stage, his gaze easily finds Cashmere; she’s glaring at him and Gloss feels the first glimmer of doubt. As his eyes meet his sister’s, everything else fades. He doesn’t hear the piping tones of the Capitol rep, doesn’t hear the roar of the crowd as they applaud his action or the weeping of the boy just handed a reprieve. Nothing exists but Cashmere.

_What have I done?_


	5. Memory's a Bitch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Haymitch, after his Games

“Go on back, now, Ash, you hear me? You’re supposed to be in school.”

“So’re you, Hay. I want to help.”

“Well I don’t want your help. Go home.”

Haymitch stopped walking, staring down at the loamy, leafy ground. He could barely see the disturbance in the leaves that told him where his trap line lay, but it wasn’t because he’d laid it so well – he had – but because of the sudden mist that clouded his vision.

“I didn’t mean it, Ash,” he whispered, dashing away the moisture that leaked from his eyes. He’d give anything for his little brother’s help now.


	6. Apology

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finnick and Katniss during Mockingjay

Finnick sat there for a long time after the cameras stopped recording, lost in his memories as the lights faded away. At least the tears had finally dried. Eventually, he stood, surprised that his legs didn’t buckle, and that’s when he saw her.

“Katniss…”

“Oh, Finnick, I am so sorry.” She took a step toward him and then another. “I didn’t know.”

“I know you didn’t.” He started to say something else, but she rode over him.

“All those awful things I thought about you, and all that time you were…” She swallowed. “Please, forgive me. I am so sorry.”


	7. Waiting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Haymitch during Annie Cresta's Victory Tour

Haymitch stands on the platform, waiting, like all the others. Every year it’s the same. Two names called, two kids entrusted to his care, he brings two kids home in pine boxes, and six months later, he stands on this same platform and he waits.

The train is late. The people surrounding him, merchant and Seam alike, are growing restless. Some of the bolder ones, the ones with nothing to lose – or who think they have nothing to lose – drift away, return to their homes or to the Hob or even slip outside the fence. He watches the oldest Hawthorne kid do just that out of the corner of his eye as a light rain begins to fall, droplets so fine they cling to skin and hair and cloth like a sheen of sweat, only colder. It’s the heat of the day, a little before four – _Ain’t that appropriate?_ – and once the sun slips a little lower in the sky, that fine, misty rain will turn to snow and form a blanket of white over everything. Icy. Suffocating. _And ain’t that appropriate, too? Fucking Snow._

He pulls the silver flask from his coat pocket and lifts it to his lips. In the distance a steam whistle blows and the crowd begins to rustle like dried up leaves blown by the breeze as they move as one closer to the tracks. Haymitch surreptitiously drinks, letting the colder-than-Snow white liquor slide down his throat before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He replaces the stopper in the mouth of his flask and slips it back into his pocket. No one watches him. No one sees or cares. Why should they? He’s nothing but a washed up old drunk at thirty-six. Two more dead kids from him and they wait to greet the one kid who lived. Never one of their own. Never a kid from Twelve.

The train pulls into the station right at four in a flush of steam that mingles and mixes with the cold, misty rain. He’s pretty sure he sees a few big, fat flakes of snow here and there as the band starts to play. A particularly enthusiastic cymbal crash makes him wince as the mayor steps forward to greet the tall young man who steps off the train, bronze hair practically glowing in the fading light.

Finnick Odair shakes Undersee’s hand and says something Haymitch can’t hear but that makes the older man laugh as the new victor, a slip of a girl, steps off the train with another of Four's victors. He supposes he should get up there; he’s part of this dog and pony show, too.


	8. Human Contact

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Annie and Peeta in the Capitol during Mockingjay

Huddled in the corner of her cell with her eyes tightly shut, she doesn’t see them, but Annie hears it when they bring him back. Booted footsteps. A shuffling drag. The creak of metal on metal too long untended when they open the cell door on the other side of the wall from hers and then the dissonant clang when they slam it shut once more. She covers her ears with her hands and hums a song that Finnick used to sing for her. All she wants is to drown the sounds the Peacekeepers make as they leave the cell block.

But once their booted footsteps recede and then fade away altogether, neither the song nor the barrier of her hands can drown out the sounds of Peeta’s uneven breathing or the muffled sound of his voice as he tells someone who isn’t there “no,” over and over again. She’s heard that particular sound more times than she cares to count, although the voice was her own.

After a time the protests grow less, but his breathing is still ragged. On impulse, Annie scoots across the cold concrete floor until she’s close enough to reach out and grip the steel bars. Leaning against the cold metal, facing toward Peeta’s cell, she begins to sing. Her voice is tentative at first, but grows stronger as the moments tick past and his breathing grows more even. First her song is a lullaby her mother used to sing her as a small child. Then she sings a chanty from home, one Finnick taught her, a little bit dirty and a lot funny. When she hears a snort of laughter from Peeta’s cell, Annie allows herself a smile but hides it in the crook of her arm lest the Peacekeepers with their cameras see.

"Where’d you learn that one?" he asks and his voice is close enough she knows he moved to the same wall she leans against. If she were to reach out a hand, they could twine their fingers together, some small comfort. As impulsively as she began to sing, she slips her hand between the bars to where she’s sure Peeta can see it. She regrets it almost instantly; she can’t hide it as she hid her smile and the guards will see it. But then Peeta takes her hand in his - his fingers are wider than Finnick’s, shorter - and his grip is desperate. She squeezes his hand and resolves not to say anything about him crushing hers.

"Finnick taught it to me. He was trying to make me laugh."

Another chuff of laughter and his grip loosens a bit. “I’ll bet it worked.”

"It did."

They sit there quietly after that, still holding hands, neither of them ready or willing to move. Annie hums, but it’s too quiet for her to risk singing again. Maybe when they bring Johanna back, or Enobaria, but not right now. It’s just the two of them, but for now, the quiet and the simple human contact is enough.


	9. Serenity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Haymitch and Johanna, post-Mockingjay

Haymitch stared up toward the ceiling, watching millions of dust motes swirl and dance in the sun’s strengthening rays. For the past few minutes, he’d been idly tracing random patterns on his wife’s bare shoulder, and every so often, she batted at his hand, but didn’t wake. He started a new pattern, and this time, he must have tickled a little too much; Johanna struck out at his hand and then snuggled deeper into his arms, turning just enough that her shoulder was no longer easily available to him to use as a canvas. Smiling, he shifted, burying his nose in her soft hair.

“I love you, Hanna,” he whispered, almost overwhelmed by a greater feeling of serenity than he’d ever known. She made a sleepy sound in response, nothing truly resembling words, but still didn’t wake. Content, he kissed that soft hair and closed his eyes, letting himself drift once more to sleep, safe in her arms.


	10. Shatter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Johanna and Finnick, pre-trilogy

An insistent ringing woke them both and Johanna pushed Finnick back down as she slipped out of bed. “Just the phone,” she whispered. “Go back to sleep.”

Instead, Finnick watched her silhouette, limned in candy-colored moonlight as she picked up the receiver and leaned back against the window of her Capitol apartment. He stretched lazily and shifted into the pool of warmth she had left behind, but then she made a sharp sound and dropped the phone and he reached over to switch on the bedside lamp just in time to watch her shatter. He was out of bed and by her side in less than a breath.

“Jo?”

“They’re dead. That mother fucking _bastard_.” Her dark eyes met his. “I wouldn’t play his game so now they’re dead.”


	11. Grave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Annie and Finnick, pre-trilogy

Annie dropped to her knees by the simple marker that read “Kai Zubiri – forever loved” and gently laid a spray of blue curls there. The wildflower had been her grandmother’s favorite. She stared at the splash of brilliant, deep blue against the sandy grayish soil and gray-green scrub grass as a shadow fell over the grave.

“She would’ve loved you,” she said to the man blocking the weak winter sunlight.

“What makes you say that?” Finnick asked, crouching down beside her and laying a warm hand on her shoulder. She covered it with her own.

“You’d have made her laugh.”


	12. The Question Resolved

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brutus during Catching Fire

The debate had gone on since President Snow announced the terms of the Quarter Quell. Would District 2 trust to the luck of the reaping ball? Would they send a volunteer? If a volunteer, would the Center allow any of the district’s eleven victors to volunteer for the privilege? Or would they preselect those volunteers?

Brutus dropped the bright white paper to his kitchen table; it slid for a few inches before coming to a stop against his salt and pepper shakers. Without looking at it again, he turned and walked away.

_After lengthy consideration, the Center has selected you to volunteer as the male tribute to the Hunger Games’ Third Quarter Quell. Your unique combination of skills and your current circumstances…_

There was more, but he hadn’t read it. Justification for the Center’s decision was irrelevant. They had chosen him for their own reasons, had decided that he could win the Games a second time against opponents who were potentially as deadly as he. And, too, they knew that he would do nothing that would bring dishonor to the district. He should be proud at the Center’s confidence in him, but instead he just felt numb.

He was going back to the arena.


	13. Burning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buttercup, between Catching Fire and Mockingjay

For days everything burned and he stayed hidden in a hole in the ground. It had belonged to something large and strong smelling before, but now it was his. At least until it felt safe for him to leave it.

When the heat and the smoke grew less, he was hungry and thirsty enough to emerge from his hole. The wind blew the stench of charred _everything_ toward him and he hissed, his fur standing on end, his tail three times its normal size. He ran away from the stench and the hole and from his own fear. He ran toward the scent of water, avoiding the spots along his route that were still too hot for the tender pads of his paws.

It was near the stream, after he’d lapped at the cool water until he could drink no more, that he smelled something comforting. The scent was on the rocks and the dirt. His two legger. He sniffed at the rocks again. His two legger and the Hunter.

With a soft mewling sound, the orange cat set off at a run to find his two legger. His two legger was his home.


	14. Is Everything Okay?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Haymitch and Finnick, pre-trilogy

"Finnick? What’re you doing up here? It’s the middle of the day.”

Finnick salutes Haymitch with the bottle in his hand. “I would’ve thought that was obvious.” He lifts it to his lips for a long pull. He’s had enough since he set foot on the Training Center roof that he doesn’t even feel it burning its way down his throat anymore. Come to think of it, he doesn’t feel his lips anymore, either. He grins a little blearily at Haymitch as the older man slides down the low wall to sit beside him.

"Everything okay?" Haymitch asks.

In lieu of an answer, Finnick downs another long swig of alcohol, might’ve finished the contents of the bottle, if Haymitch hadn’t grabbed it away from him.

Haymitch studies his prize, his look of disdain slowly morphing into surprise. “This isn’t that weak-ass, sugary crap you usually drink.” He scowls when Finnick laughs and then raises one eyebrow at the younger man and there is no way that sound Finnick just heard was a giggle. Finnick does not giggle. No. Wait, what?

When his question doesn’t receive a response, Finnick realizes he never asked it aloud. “What did you say, Haymitch?”

"What’s going on, Finnick? I’ve never known you to head up to the Training Center roof in the middle of the day to drink yourself silly."

Feeling suddenly bereft, Finnick asks, “Can I have my booze back?” He holds out a hand for it, but Haymitch refuses to return it.

"Not until you tell me what’s wrong, boy."

Leaning back, meaning to just rest his head against the wall, Finnick ends up banging it against the bricks instead. “Ow.” He tries again, more gingerly this time, and eyes Haymitch sideways. When he’s sure Haymitch isn’t going to return the whiskey until he answers, Finnick sighs. “I broke the rules, Haymitch.”

Haymitch frowns and takes a drink from Finnick’s bottle. “What rules?” Finnick feels tears sting the backs of his eyes, and he doesn’t know whether it’s because Haymitch is drinking his booze or because…

"Victors aren’t supposed to fall in love." Looking at Haymitch’s gray eyes and unruly black hair, all Finnick can see are eyes as green as the sea on a stormy day and tangled brown hair, shot through with gold and copper. It takes him a minute to register that not only is Haymitch staring at him, but he’s holding out the bottle for Finnick.

"Take it, kid. I guess you do need this more than I do."


	15. Comfort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finnick and Gloss, pre-74th Games

Finnick sits in the dark with his head in his hands and he rocks. Every last shred of energy he has he pours into pushing out the memories of his last appointment, one from which he escaped only an hour or so ago. He wants a shower, needs a shower, but he can’t risk running into Mags, fielding either her questions or her sympathy, and so he sits in the dark in the victors’ lounge and he rocks. And rocks.

A hand falls on his shoulder and he nearly jumps out of his skin. He jerks violently away from the contact and the only thing that saves him from a nasty landing on the coffee table is that same hand tightening around his wrist.

“Whoa. Finnick. What the hell?” Gloss. Of course it would be Gloss.

The older man studies Finnick’s face in the flickering light of the television. Finnick has no idea what Gloss sees, but he frowns and moves in closer and for a moment Finnick thinks Gloss is going to kiss him, but he merely sits down on the couch and pulls Finnick back up to sit beside him.

“I didn’t mean to startle you. Rough date?”

He opens his mouth to make a snarky comment, but the sympathy in Gloss’ eyes and in his voice is too much. What comes out instead is a choked off sob and then, helpless to stop it, Finnick starts to cry.

Instead of mocking him, which is what Finnick expects, Gloss reaches out and pulls Finnick up against his side. “Hush, Finnick.” He pushes Finnick’s head down on his shoulder and strokes his hair like Mags would, or his mother. “It’s okay. You’re safe here. You’re safe.”

And for a little while, Finnick believes him.


	16. No Ghosts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everlark, post-Mockingjay

The knife twisted in her hand, the blade slicing deep into the heel of her hand. There was no pain, not right away, but the blood welled quickly to drip into the sink, deep red, dissipating into the water to trickle down the drain.

"Katniss? What—?"

Dropping the knife with a clatter of metal on metal, Katniss clutched at her left hand with her right and looked over her shoulder at Peeta with dread. It had been months since he’d had an episode, but she had no idea what the sight of the blood - her blood - might do to him. He stared at her hands, slick and red, his pupils dilated, barely any blue iris remaining. She could practically feel the electric hum of the tension running through his body and she braced herself for an attack.

But the attack never came. Peeta closed his eyes hard, sucked in a deep breath. He held it for a moment, his hands clenched into fists at his sides, but then he brushed flour from his palms onto his jeans and opened his eyes and Katniss saw that they were clear - no ghosts, no lies made solid by tracker jacker venom. He moved quickly to take her hands in his and hold them under cold water, cleaning the cut and then drying her hand gently with a towel.

"With all the hunting you do, Katniss, you’d think you’d be better with a knife," he said before planting a brief kiss on her temple. And if his voice was a little shaky, well, Katniss would never tell anyone.


	17. Gray Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everlark, Peeta POV during Mockingjay

He felt the needle enter his arm, the ice and fire of whatever it was they injected into him. The leather straps were tight around his wrists, digging into his skin, but still he struggled, tried to break free as the room around him began to fade away. But even as his vision grew cloudy, the sounds grew more sharp, so sharp he was sure his ears bled.

That’s when the voices began to hammer at him, telling him lies and truths and things in between until he didn’t know what was light and what was shadow. He tried to imagine her voice, a sound so pure and sweet that even the birds fell silent just so they could listen to her, but he couldn’t get close enough through the cacophony of lies. His mind, his imagination flailed for something to cling to. Opening his eyes, he shut them again almost immediately against the bright white lights and ceiling and walls; the light left behind an afterimage that faded to the color of her eyes.

Katniss’ eyes…

Storm clouds and ashes. The soft fur of the squirrels she sold to his father. The feathers of a dove’s wings, pearly gray from a distance, but all the colors of a rainbow up close, if the light hit just right. The deep water in District 4, clear as crystal, shimmering in the sun but dark in shadow.

Everything else faded away - the voices, the lies, the fear - until the only thing that remained was the gray of her eyes.


	18. Capitol Sharks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chaff and Haymitch, pre-trilogy

Chaff scratched absently at his stump as he watched the Capitolites in the room swarm the new kid, the underdog who won the Quarter Quell the year before by using the Gamemakers’ “brilliance” against them. Smiling at the memory, he took up his drink and pushed away from the bar. When he saw Mags looking worriedly at the kid – what was his name? Hay something – he gave her a nod and sauntered over to the group by the door.

Shouldering his way between a silver-skinned couple, Chaff stated, “You all don’t mind if I steal away your prize.” When the male half of the pair looked like he was about to protest, Chaff looked him in the eye and continued, “Do you?” Turning his back on them, he slipped his handless arm around the kid’s shoulders and steered him away.

“Buncha damn sharks,” he observed and the boy looked at him sharply with those cool gray eyes. Chaff grinned at him, but it wasn’t a nice expression. “Smellin’ blood in the water.”


	19. Remember

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Annie, post-Mockingjay

She walks along the beach, bare feet sinking a bit into packed, wet sand. A gull hangs in the air overhead and screeches at her; Annie stops and raises a hand to shade her eyes as she watches the bird, brilliant white against the deep azure sky. The water laps at her toes, tickling and cool, as the sun beats down on her head and shoulders, a warm weight. A splash out in the water draws her attention away from the bird in the sky, but all she sees is the sunlight sparkling on the waves. Annie closes her eyes and raises her face to the breeze.

“Come on in, Annie!” he calls to her. “The water’s just about perfect.” She shivers at the sound of Finnick’s voice; a moment later the baby kicks and she raises her hands to cradle her swollen belly. Opening her eyes, she looks out over the gulf, shimmering and opaque under the sun. She can almost see him there, beckoning, bronze hair and white teeth flashing bright and she chokes back a sob.

How many times had she heard him say those words? And how many times had she told him _maybe next time_? He’d never pushed her, had always trusted that she’d go back into the water when she was ready. And now she’d never hear him say those words again.

She looks down at her enormous stomach, strokes the child she and he had created. “Little one, I promise you, since your father can’t be here to do it, I’ll teach you to swim.”


	20. Gray

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katniss and Haymitch, District 13

Katniss scratches absently at her arm; her fingers catch on the bracelet identifying her as mentally disoriented. She stares at it, at the olive skin beneath it and at the faint pink lines where she scratched too hard. Her hands fall to her sides.

She can hear Finnick on the other side of the curtain, crying in his sleep. He’s been crying off and on for days, so very different from the competent young man who was her ally in the arena, and suddenly she can’t take the sound of it anymore. It doesn’t matter that she isn’t dressed, that all she wears is a hospital gown or that her feet are bare. She silently slips out of the room, knowing that her bracelet will act as a hall pass if anyone should stop her.

With no destination in mind, Katniss pads down the hall, away from Finnick and his incessant crying. She feels a little guilty about her irritation - she actually likes the guy, when he’s not being an arrogant jerk - but not guilty enough to go back and wake him from whatever nightmare has hold of him now.

A low moan stops her in her tracks and she looks toward the door, slightly ajar, that it seemed to come from. It comes again and the voice, gravelly and low, sounds familiar. Looking up and down the hallway to make sure she’s alone, Katniss steps toward the door and pushes it open.

She’s surprised to see Haymitch, lying on a bed just like hers, attached to monitors and an I.V. drip. Frowning, she steps into the room and closer to the bed as he jerks his head from side to side, another low moan escaping his lips. Her eyes widen when she sees leather straps around his wrists. His face is gray and damp and for the first time, she notices the gray strands in his dark hair, lines of pain and sorrow carved into the skin around his closed eyes and his mouth, etched across his forehead. Without thinking, she reaches out to smooth the tangled hair from where it fell across his eyes.

He jerks awake, tugs at the straps holding him prisoner in the bed, and then falls still. Gray Seam eyes looking almost silver in the artificial lights, he watches her warily.

Not knowing what else to say, she asks him, “Who did this to you?” They both look down at the leather restraints around his wrists and she’s fairly sure there are another set around his ankles, too, under the thin sheet.

"The good people of Thirteen are just trying to dry me out, sweetheart." He relaxes then, seeming to melt into his pillow. "Fuck, I need a drink."


	21. Foreign

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark, about a week or so after returning home from the 74th Games

“C’mon.” Katniss grabs his hand and pulls him along with her as she slips out of the kitchen. Preoccupied with choreographing the lighting and color scheme for the next photo shoot, their stylists and prep teams and the camera crews won’t need either of them for a little while, so Peeta allows her to lead him.

“Where are we going?”

She glances over her shoulder at him. “Away. If I have to stay here much longer, I’ll strangle one of them.”

Peeta smiles at that, but it quickly fades as he wonders why she’s bothering to bring him along in her escape. It’s not as though they’re really friends, right? Isn’t it all for the cameras? He stops abruptly and her grip is so strong, digging into his flesh, that she pulls up short, yanking at his arm and nearly stumbling.

“Peeta, come on. We both need a break before _we_ break.” She releases his hand and starts walking again, confident that he’ll follow; after a moment, he does.

Katniss leads him to the fence that surrounds the district. The Victors’ Village is closer to the no man’s land beyond that fence than his home in town, but even so, this is the closest he’s ever been to that fence. He watches as she seems to listen intently for a few seconds and then she reaches out to lift one of the wires. Stepping through, she holds the gap between wires open and gestures for him to come through.

He hesitates. The idea of going outside the fence is so foreign to him that he can’t force his legs to take him the last few steps toward it. But Katniss is waiting for him, if somewhat impatiently, and she’s actually acting as though she wants him with her, so he swallows hard and takes those last couple of steps. With a quick glance around to reassure himself that there are no Peacekeepers lurking, he swings his bad leg over and she helps him through.

“Now what?” he asks, feeling as though he’s some kind of rebel.

Katniss smiles for the first time in days. “Now we can breathe.”


	22. Seeking Solace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peeta Mellark and Annie Cresta, in District 13 during Mockingjay

Day after day, she is always there, waiting to go in when Peeta comes out.

He doesn’t want her there at first, doesn’t want her to see him in chains, like some kind of animal or worse, a mutt of himself. But then he remembers that she’s seen him, heard him, at his worst. They had adjoining cells, after all.

They tell him the Capitol filled his head with lies. But in the Capitol, they told him that it was those who rebelled that lied. He doesn’t know who to believe. All he knows is that his world is full of lies. The only truths he’s sure of, and even that is sometimes suspect, are his friend Delly, the only thing from home he can cling to, and the girl who comes to see Dr. Aurelius after his own sessions end.

He doesn’t understand how she can be with Odair, a rebel just like _her_ , like Katniss. But Annie is calm and friendly and unfailingly kind, at least toward him. Like Delly, Annie laughs often, but unlike Delly, it’s not always clear just why Annie laughs. That disturbs everyone else, but not him. It only makes him like her, trust her, more. _She_ hardly ever laughs.

Annie is there waiting when he walks out, just as she always is, but there’s something different about her today. Peeta frowns. There is a light in her green eyes he hasn’t seen before and when she laughs, just a little, the razor’s edge is gone. He stops beside her when she stands, blocking her from moving forward.

“Is something wrong, Peeta?” Her voice sounds lighter than one of his father’s special cakes, the sweet white ones that rise taller than the pan when they bake.

“Do you think we’ll ever be the same as we were before?” he asks.

Annie reaches up to stroke his face and he closes his eyes. “No,” she tells him. The light is still there, in her voice and in her eyes when he opens his. “No, I don’t. The Games broke something in us. We can’t go back.” She steps in closer and slides her arms around him, rests her cheek on his shoulder. He stands there in the hallway, his gray-clad handlers watching, ready to step in if he does anything wrong when she whispers, “But we can move forward.”

Her words slowly sink in, and when they do, Peeta chokes back an embarrassing sound as he lifts his arms to return Annie’s embrace.


	23. Tools Into Weapons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Annie and Gale: weapons, rain, secrets

The rain has been falling for hours, sometimes a gentle shower, other times a driving downpour, and Gale has been sitting in it for almost that entire time, wavering back and forth as to whether he’s doing the right thing or if he’s becoming a monster.

“I thought I’d be alone,” says the strange girl he had carried back here to 13 from the Capitol; he heard the difference in the sound of the rain as soon as she stepped foot outside the bunker.

Several responses roll around in his head, but in the end, looking into green eyes that have seen more of death and madness than he can imagine, he settles on, “Can I tell you a secret?” He thinks maybe she might understand what he needs, that maybe she can give him some measure of peace.

No more mindful of the wet and the cold than he is himself, she sits silently beside him on his rock and he tells her things he knows he shouldn’t, of traps and snares and prey and of tools for survival transformed into weapons with no other purpose than to kill.


	24. Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Annie's pre-Games interview, 70th Games

"Tell me, Annie," Caesar Flickerman began, "what is your favorite thing about living in District Four?"

Internally, Annie rolled her eyes at the question, even though Finnick had told her to expect something along those lines. Everyone in the Capitol, he’d told her, thought their district was some exotic paradise with sunshine and perfect weather every day of the year.

"Really, Mr. Flickerman…" She caught her lower lip between her teeth, drawing the moment out. "I think my favorite thing about living in Four is probably a good winter storm. The kind that builds up for hours and then lets loose with so much rain you think the whole world will wash away."

Out of the corner of her eye, Annie caught a glimpse of her mentor sitting stone-faced in the front row of the audience and her stomach seemed to drop as she thought she’d made some kind of terrible mistake. But then he winked at her and reminded her of what was truly one of her favorite things about District 4 - the sun breaking through the clouds after one of those same winter storms and the way it would transform those same clouds into myriad shades of gold and rose and copper.


	25. Roses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Effie doesn't understand what the big deal is with roses

"Get those damn things out of here," Haymitch growled before he’d even set foot inside the dining car.

"Your manners, Mr. Abernath—" Effie jumped back with a slight squeak when Haymitch moved past her and swept the vase of white roses from the center of the table. They fell to the floor with a splash and a clatter, but the vase remained intact. Katniss and Peeta glanced at each other and then at Haymitch, but didn’t say a word. 

Instead Peeta got up from his chair, gathered up the dozen or so fragrant roses from the floor and shoved them into the vase, not caring whether they were heads up or down, and carried the whole thing over to the window. He pushed the button to the right of the window and the glass lowered about six inches, just enough that he could push the vase out to shatter on the tracks below. The wind of the train’s passage sucked the scent of the flowers out of the car, save for a lingering trace of it near the dining table.

"I don’t understand," Effie said, frowning as she looked from Haymitch to Peeta. "They’re just flowers."


	26. Imprisonment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finnick not long after arrival in District 13

Finnick watched the fly struggle to break free of the web even as another knot bloomed in his restlessly moving fingers. He didn’t know how long he watched or how many knots he wove and destroyed, unseeing, before the flies struggles against its soft and yielding prison finally stopped.

He shifted in his spot on the floor of his tiny room until he could no longer see the dead or dying fly. It didn’t really matter anyway, whether he could see it or not. He still knew it was there, prisoner of the spider that had built the web, just as he was imprisoned by his own fears, as Katniss was imprisoned by hers, as Annie and Johanna and Peeta were imprisoned by Snow.

Sometimes it felt like it would never end, like they would never be free.

Closing his eyes, he began yet another knot.


	27. Umbrella

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katniss and her mother on a rainy day in 12

Hand on the doorknob, Katniss stared at the umbrella, black and ugly, that her mother held out toward her.

"What’s that for?"

"It’s raining," her mother said, as if that were some sort of answer.

"I know it’s raining." It had been raining for days, but they needed to eat and while the rain might drive some game into hiding, there would still be plenty of opportunities out in the woods. Not all creatures hated the rain. Without another word, she turned her back on her mother and walked out under the weeping skies.


	28. Wink

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the story behind that wink on the elevator from Johanna to Haymtch

"Is that your girl over there?" Johanna asked as she came up beside Haymitch. "Talking to Finnick?" She tugged at the high collar of her costume, which was not quite tight enough around her throat to choke her, but only just.

He looking in the direction Johanna gestured with her chin - which was a mistake, because that made the damn thing chafe at her jawline. “That’s her,” he confirmed.

As they watched, the girl in the black unitard, her signature braid down her back, took a step away from the handsome victor from 4, but he only followed her. He held something out to her and then took a step closer, whispering in her ear, and Haymitch laughed.

"What’s so funny?"

"That boy is scaring the crap out of her."

"Oh, really." Johanna took a closer look and she could see, even from this distance, that Katniss face was a pretty spectacular shade of red from Finnick’s attentions. A wicked grin spread across Johanna’s face. She drew her fingers lightly down Haymitch’s arm in farewell, but he stopped her by the simple expedient of grabbing her wrist when her hand reached his.

"What are you up to?" he asked suspiciously and Johanna’s grin grew even wider.

"Oh, nothing you need to worry about, old man." With an equally wicked laugh, Johanna sauntered away.


	29. Blood in the Water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this is how Chaff and Haymitch's friendship began

Chaff scratched absently at his stump as he watched the Capitolites in the room swarm the new kid, the underdog who won the Quarter Quell the year before by using the Gamemakers’ “brilliance” against them. Smiling at the memory, he took up his drink and pushed away from the bar. When he saw Mags looking worriedly at the kid – what was his name? Hay something – he gave her a nod and sauntered over to the group by the door.

Shouldering his way between a silver-skinned couple, Chaff stated, “You all don’t mind if I steal away your prize.” When the male half of the pair looked like he was about to protest, Chaff looked him in the eye and continued, “Do you?” Turning his back on them, he slipped his handless arm around the kid’s shoulders and steered him away.

“Buncha damn sharks,” he observed and the boy looked at him sharply with those cool gray eyes. Chaff grinned at him, but it wasn’t a nice expression. “Smellin’ blood in the water.”


	30. Training

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Finnick teaches Annie how to fight after one of her training sessions._

"Where are we going?" Annie asks, pulling her arm out of Finnick Odair’s grasp.

"The gym," he tells her and grabs her by the wrist. His grip isn’t hard, but it is firm; he’s not going to let her go again.

"It’s after hours," she protests, picking up her pace to keep up with him. "The gym’s locked up." He grins at her as he punches the button to call the elevator and her heart trips in her chest. She’d never dreamed she’d be this close to District 4’s golden boy, not that she has any intention of letting him know she’s a bit star struck. “They don’t want any tributes in there outside of training hours.”

"Now see? You _did_ learn something today,” he teases. The elevator doors open and he pulls her inside, punching the button for the sub-level that houses the gymnasium as the doors close behind her. Only then does he let go of her wrist.

"Annie, I watched you this afternoon. You did just fine with a knife, but we need to work on your technique with other weapons."

"I worked with plenty of weapons during training in school."

He nods. “I know. I read your file, remember?” She rolls her eyes at him, recalling their first meeting just that morning. He’d given her a hard time then, too, even comparing her - albeit not directly - to a Golden Retriever.

"And what’s wrong with my technique?" She tries to mask the note of petulance in her tone, but she has the feeling Finnick Odair can see right through her.

Arriving at the gymnasium, Finnick taps a code into the keypad and she hears a click just before he pushes the door open. He gestures with one arm for her to precede him into the cavernous room.

"How do you have the code?"

He winks at her. “I know people.”

Finnick follows her into the room and flips a couple of switches, flooding the gym with light. All of the training stations - weapons, edible plants, knot tying, etc. - are just as they’d left them a few hours earlier, but without any other tributes or trainers in the room, without the Gamemakers and their assistants watching from above, it looks very different. Less intimidating. Annie wonders if Finnick watched her training from the Gamemakers’ area, if those are the people he knows. There have been rumors about him back home for years, not all of them nice.

"Look sharp!"

Annie turns toward her mentor just in time to see him throw something at her. She has less than a heartbeat to decide whether to catch whatever it is or avoid it. Sliding a few inches to her right, she feels the slight change in air flow by her left shoulder as the object flies past her to thump into the wall beside the shelter making station. Watching the knife wobble where it’s stuck in the wall, Annie slowly turns her head toward Finnick, raising one eyebrow at him.

"Very good." He nods in approval as he walks neither toward her nor away, but rather he circles her, never taking his attention from her. She’s reminded of one of the big cats she saw on television once, a special about the Capitol Zoo and Aquarium.

"What if I’d tried to catch that?"

He shrugs. “I suspect you’d have a nasty cut on your hand.”

"Why did you do it?"

Again he shrugs, but he’s suddenly serious when he tells her, “You have good instincts, Annie. You’ll need them in the arena.” He nods toward the knife. “Grab that and come at me.”

"Gladly," she responds, stalking over to the wall and yanking the knife out. Flipping it around in her hand, she spins and charges toward Finnick, the knife extended. He hadn’t held back when he threw it at her; she’s not going to hold back on him now.

When she reaches him, he gracefully sidesteps her, reaching for the knife, but she doesn’t let him get away with it, deliberately tangling her ankle with his, knocking them both off balance. They fall together onto the floor, Finnick on the bottom, and she releases the knife. It skitters across the hardwood floor, coming to rest a couple of feet out of reach.

She looks down at Finnick when he blows her hair out of his face, grins at him when the attempt fails, but then she takes pity on him and reaches up to pull her hair back over one shoulder.

Cocking his head to one side, his eyes still on hers, Finnick says, “You have to be ready for anything in the arena. Even someone you think is your friend might kill you.” Before he’s finished speaking, he rolls them both, shifting her beneath his body and reaching for the knife, but she once more tangles their limbs together, using their momentum to continue the roll at an angle. She’ll have bruises in the morning, but when she grasps the hilt of the knife and sees the surprise in his gorgeous eyes, she decides it’ll be worth every one of them.


	31. Victor, Soldier, Mother

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Finnick acting really caring as careful towards Annie after he finds out she's pregnant? Just fancy something fluffy and cute to read :)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fits with my Victorious-Rebellious 'verse and follows directly after the epilogue of Rebellious.

“Finnick?” Annie’s voice pulls at him, drawing him slowly up from sleep.

“Hmm…?” His head rests on her right shoulder, the one with the scar from a Peacekeeper bullet, and little Maggie is a warm weight between them.

“What do you think about having another baby?”

He smiles and nuzzles at her shoulder, plants a mostly chaste kiss there. “I’m all for it.”

“Good.”

She sounds smug and he doesn’t say anything for a couple of heartbeats, but then he can no longer contain the emotions swelling inside him. “Good?”

“Mm hmm.” Maggie shifts and snuggles in more fully to her mother; she doesn’t wake.

“Annie?” Her name is an urgent whisper. “Are you…?”

“Mm hmm.” 

He sits up abruptly, Maggie no longer holding him back. Staring down at his wife, lying there staring back up at him with their daughter against her side, Finnick feels the grin spreading over his face; he couldn’t stop it if he wanted to. Annie’s answering smile makes his heart beat faster.

"How long…?"

"How long have I known or how long until the baby is born?" All he can manage is a nod and she laughs. Maggie stirs and sits up, rubbing at her eyes. "Careful, baby," Annie tells her, "you don’t want sand in your eyes." Glancing up at the clouds drifting in overhead, Annie tells Finnick, "We should be getting back, but we still have a good six or seven months until the baby comes." 

She rolls to her knees, allowing Finnick to see past her to the rocks and breakers they crossed to get to their spot on the beach. They’ll have to either go through that again or through the underbrush and vines in the trees behind them. He shudders, suddenly reminded of the Quarter Quell arena and then of all the things they fought through to have Maggie, which brings to mind all of the things that could go wrong now. By the time he comes back to the beach, Annie and Maggie are most of the way to the rocks and he scrambles to his feet.

"Annie, wait!" He scrambles to his feet, slipping in the sand, and runs to her as she turns toward him, an expectant expression on her face.

"Finnick, what’s wrong?"

_Wrong?_ he thinks. _Nothing is wrong. Everything is right, except…_

"Should you be climbing rocks like this?"

Annie frowns. “What?”

He knows it’s ridiculous - she’s a victor, a soldier, a pirate, and a mother - but he can’t help it. He almost lost her too many times. He slips his arm around her waist, suddenly sure that if she climbs those rocks, she’ll fall and break something important, like her neck.

"Let’s go back the long way," he says and starts to steer her toward the trees.

"Finnick Odair." He stops. "You can’t be serious."

"Well…"

"I am not going to break. And it was perfectly okay for me to climb these rocks three hours ago, when you didn’t know I was pregnant."

"Yes, but…"

"Da? Is Mama mad at you?"

"I don’t know, chica." He looks at Annie scowling at him. "Is Mama mad at me?"

"Not yet," she replies, green eyes sparkling, "but if you keep it up, I might be." He starts to say something, but she raises a finger and lays it across his lips. "Hush, before you get yourself in trouble."

He nips at her finger and when she pulls it back from his teeth and opens her mouth to protest, he leans in and kisses her.

"I love you, Annie Odair."


	32. Torn Between Fight and Flight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _maybe some kind of interaction between peeta and finnick? maybe after peeta (and annie <33) are rescued and living in district 13?_

He’s up to his elbows in bread dough, punching it down, rolling it, kneading it, over and over again – mindless work, it helps him to center himself – when he feels the hairs on the back of his neck rise up. A shiver runs down his spine as all his muscles lock. He’s supposed to be safe here. No one else can be here during his assigned work time, the wee hours of the morning, when most of the others in District 13 are safely asleep.

Peeta straightens, hands clenched into floury fists; he forces his muscles to relax, but in his head, he is screaming, torn between fight and flight.

“You’re not supposed to be here.” He doesn’t bother turning to face the man standing in the doorway. “I don’t _want_ you here.” His hands are fists again, and this time he can’t make his fingers uncurl.

“I don’t have to report for training until six.” Boot steps echo in Peeta’s head. One step. Two. Three. The voice is closer, silky smooth and shot through with red and gold, a stinging edge. “I just wanted to thank you for the cake. It was beautiful.”

A shudder runs through his body, or would, if he weren’t holding himself so rigidly. “I didn’t do it for _you_.” Finnick Odair. One of _her_ creatures. “I did it for Annie.” A breath of sound rolls through his head, soft, soothing. “She used to sing to herself in her cage. Like a bird.” The more they hurt her, the more she sang. She used to sing to him, too, trying to help him hold the pieces of himself together when they did their best to tear him apart.

“I wanted to thank you for that, too, Peeta. Annie told me how you helped her through…” He stops talking and Peeta wonders what lies he’s trying to think up. He is _her_ ally, _her_ partner. _But Annie loves him_ , a small voice whispers inside his head. Annie couldn’t love him if he were a lying mutt like _her_.

Shaking his head to dislodge that treacherous voice, Peeta turns to face Annie’s husband. Wearing a gray uniform with “Odair” above the left breast pocket and black combat boots, his bronze hair and green eyes are the only splashes of color in the white and gray and stainless steel kitchens of District 13.

_green eyes boring into him as strong hands squeeze his throat tighter and tighter choking him holding him down can’t breathe can’t breathe_

Peeta stumbles back from Finnick and from the shimmering memory of the arena, bright edged with colors not seen in nature. He blinks, raises his flour-covered hands to his head in a vain attempt to hold back the pain.

“Annie does that sometimes,” Finnick says and Peeta can’t remember how he got so close. “She says it helps her to hold the memories and the fear at bay.” Peeta looks sidewise at him.

“You tried to kill me in the arena,” he accuses. “You pinned me to the ground and tried to choke me.” But even as he says it, it sounds wrong. The colors were wrong, shiny.

“No, Peeta. I’m your friend. I saved your life. I never tried to take it.”

Lowering his hands, Peeta searches Finnick’s face.

A hard shove sent him flying and as he looked back, he saw Enobaria’s knife stick in Finnick’s thigh, right where Peeta had stood mere seconds before. And then the world was spinning and he was clinging to the rock, trying to keep from flying out into the water.

Squeezing harder at the sides of his head, Peeta closes his eyes, trying to hold onto this memory. It’s gritty and raw, greenish and grayish and salty, soaking him to the skin. But not shiny. Nothing about it is unnatural.

“Real…”


	33. Dolphins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Finnick/Annie, dolphins_

"MR. ODAIR! MR. ODAIR!"

Finnick set the wet plate back in the sink and walked out onto his back porch as one of Jackson Hull’s girls came hurtling up the steps, screaming for him. The fear and near panic in her voice set his heart to pounding as adrenaline shot through him.

The barefooted child could barely get the words out, her lungs worked so hard. “Annie…! You gotta come!”

Annie.

The girl - Mia? Moire? He never could tell them apart. - reached out a hand and he grabbed her up by it and set her on his bare shoulders. She reflexively grasped at his neck with both hands, but her she was so small, no more than four or five years old, that he didn’t fear choking to death.

"Where, chica? Point the way." He tried to keep his own panic out of his voice as the little girl pulled her right hand from his throat and pointed toward the beach and the uninhabited end of Victors’ Island. Annie had gone to walk along that beach while he washed the breakfast dishes. She’d been gone almost an hour, nothing unusual, but the storm they’d had overnight had left the water much higher than normal, making both incoming and outgoing tides dangerous. If something had happened and she’d gone into the water…

Clutching the Hull girl’s ankles, Finnick broke into a run, bare feet slipping a little in the sand.

"How much farther?" he asked.

"Almost there, Mr. Odair. We’ve got to help her!" The panic was gone, but the girl’s words still didn’t set him at ease.

Passing beyond where he could see the houses in the cove, if he were to turn around, Finnick looked out over the expanse of water between the island and the mainland, swept his gaze across the empty sand and beachgrass that made up the interior of the island. There was nothing. No movement. No sight of Annie in her red top and white shorts. No Annie.

His eyes stopped tracking when they reached a gray shape on the beach, maybe eight feet long, well up past the normal high-tide line, let alone the line created by the storm surge.

"Moire, where’s Annie?"

"I’m Mia," the girl responded, but Finnick barely heard her. All he knew was the flash of red and white, the flowing brown of her hair as Annie stepped into view past the thing on the beach. The thing that looked like…

"Is that a dolphin?"

"Mm hmm," came the humming reply in his ear. Then, making him wince, "We gotta help her!"

"Finnick!" Annie shouted, waving for him to come quickly. Since it was Mia on his shoulders, the girl dancing around Annie and the beached dolphin must be Moire. When he and Mia were closer, he let the girl slide gently to the ground as Annie said, "Well done, Mia! You did very well to find him."

Mia wouldn’t let go of his hand, pulling him along behind her as she ran toward the dolphin’s head; Finnick allowed himself to be towed. He misstepped but caught himself when the dolphin’s tail flopped weakly - he’d thought it was dead.

"We’ve got to help her," he murmured, smiling bemusedly as the fear released its grip on him. Annie was okay; it was the dolphin - a female - that needed help.

"I think she was stranded by the surge," Annie said beside him as he ran a light hand along the dolphin’s hide. It felt tacky. Not good.

"We have to get her back into the water."

"Yes." Annie nodded. "That’s why I sent Mia for you, but Moire and I tried while she was gone and I think this girl might be too much even with you here." She looked worried and Finnick would do anything to take that look away.

"Odair!" a man shouted from the beach back the way they’d come. Finnick and Annie both turned and Finnick raised a hand to shade his eyes from the sun. "We saw you dash off," Martin Perch said as he slowed to a stop; Jack Hull ran past them and dropped to his knees in the sand in front of his daughters.

Annie’s laughter rang out and Finnick joined her when Martin jumped at the unexpected – and welcome – sound. “I think between the four of us, we can send her back to her mate.” She pointed out into the water where Finnick could see a dark shape swimming back and forth, back and forth.

A few minutes later, the four adults and two little girls watched as the stranded dolphin rejoined her mate. When the others started to walk back to the village, Finnick held Annie back, pulling her into his arms.

“Stay,” he whispered into her soft hair. “I don’t want to go home just yet.”


	34. Goodbye is the Hardest Thing to Say

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Finnick and Haymitch in the Training Center the night before the Quarter Quell..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An outtake from Treading Water.

It’s approaching midnight when Finnick arrives on the twelfth floor. He knocks on the door, half expecting that no one will answer, nor is he disappointed. After waiting a moment, listening, he knocks louder and after a few heavy seconds hears someone fumbling toward the door, a thud as though someone tripped over a piece of furniture, and then door opens a crack.

“Finnick?” Haymitch blinks a couple of times. “Everything okay?”

Finnick looks at his old friend, hair tousled and the wrinkles from his pillow embedded in his skin, and shrugs. “Nothing’ll ever be okay again, Haymitch. You know that.”

“Yeah, I guess I do.”

“You going to let me in?”

The older man scowls. “Depends. You here for a reason or are you just gonna get all mushy on me?”

Finnick raises one arm over his head and leans against the door jamb. “Well, I was planning on slobbering all over you. Does that count?”

“Idiot.” Haymitch rolls his eyes and steps back, opening the door for Finnick to pass. “Some?” He offers Finnick a bottle of something clear and no doubt potent. Finnick shakes his head.

“I’d better not.” His smile is bitter when he says, “I have a big day tomorrow.” Haymitch squeezes his eyes shut and blindly lifts the bottle to his mouth, taking a long pull.

“Hey,” Finnick says, reaching out to lay his hand lightly on the older man’s arm. Haymitch swallows and opens his eyes. “Don’t drink yourself to death _now_ , old man. Your kids still need you.”

“What a load of crap.”

“It’s not. And besides, I’m counting on you to help Annie.”

“Not a hell of a lot I can do on that score.”

“Maybe not, but she doesn’t have anyone else.”

Haymitch looks at Finnick through narrowed eyes. “That why you’re here, son? To bust my balls again over a bunch of shit I can’t control?”

“No.” He’s already forgiven Haymitch for the things he said on the roof a few nights before; hopefully, Haymitch has forgiven him, too. Finnick gives Haymitch a lopsided smile and says, “I wasn’t kidding about slobbering all over you. You and Chaff are my oldest friends, Haymitch, and _him_ I’ll see in the morning.”

Haymitch snorts. “You need to get out more,” he says with a sour expression, but there’s a thread of affection that runs through the words. Finnick pulls him in close and hugs him, which Haymitch actually allows and reciprocates, for just a second. “You stay alive, son, for as long as you can.” He starts to pull away, but Finnick doesn’t let him; the closer together they are, the easier to hide what he has to say from the cameras and microphones.

“I’ll do what I can to keep your girl alive, Haymitch. And thank you. For everything.”

“We’ll keep her safe.” Finnick lets the hopeful lie pass – there is no “safe” for any of them. “We’ll do everything we can to get her out of the Capitol, Finnick,” Haymitch whispers, too low for a microphone to pick up.

“I know.” Finnick finally lets him go and steps back. “Goodbye, Haymitch,” he says and walks away.


	35. Walk With Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Finnick talks to Annie about his capital visits for the first time_

Annie jumps at the sound of a knock on her door. Rap rap rap. Three times and then silence. When she opens it, Finnick is just raising his fist to knock again and her heart begins to pound too fast in her chest.

"Walk with me," he says. It’s not a request, but neither is it a demand. She’s not sure what to say. She hasn’t talked to him for nearly three days. Not since he told her he loved her. Not since he told her that he didn’t want to love her. She can’t interpret the lack of expression on his face, so at odds with the turmoil in his eyes.

When she doesn’t say anything, he turns and walks down her steps to the beach, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his jeans. It isn’t until he reaches the sand that she notices he’s not wearing any shoes. He stops and asks over his shoulder, “Are you coming?” The question is tentative, like he’s afraid she’ll just close the door and leave him out there alone, the salt wind whipping his bronze hair into a tangled mess. For half a second she contemplates doing just that - he’s made up of so much confusion, so many contradictions that she never expected, leaving her feeling exposed and confused in turn…

Without letting herself overthink it, Annie closes the door behind her and jogs down the steps; he starts walking again when she’s beside him. After a moment, he startles her again when he takes her left hand in his right.

The wind is blustery, fitful, blowing the gulls and little plovers sideways as they try to fly. Blue gray clouds scud across the sky and the sand is cold beneath Annie’s feet, as bare as Finnick’s. She wishes she’d taken the time to put on a pair of shoes, but then she laughs. She hates wearing shoes.

Finnick stops, the lack of motion tugging at Annie’s hand, since he doesn’t let go of it, and Annie turns to face him, laughter still playing about her lips and his gaze sharpens, focuses on her mouth. But then he closes his eyes and when he opens them again, he’s looking out over the water.

"Finnick, are you okay?"

He hesitates, but then he answers, “I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve been okay in a long time.” He watches the clouds for a little longer and then takes her by the hand again, leading her once more along the hard-packed sand just at the water line. Looking down at her from the corner of his eye, he raises their hands to his lips and kisses the back of hers before dropping them again to swing between them.

"I need you to understand how things are with me before we even try to start something between us."

Annie smiles down at their feet. “I think it’s too late for that,” she tells him and he snorts.

"So do I, but still…" He gives her a wistful smile, but then he sobers as he begins to talk, telling her about that awful first time, the women and men President Snow has sold or given him to during the past three years, the threats made - and carried out - against his family and the distance he’s tried to put between them and how Annie herself will figure into that as they move forward.

He falls silent then, his words, harsh and ugly, giving way to the sound of the surf and the wind and the screeching gulls. They walk a little farther, still holding hands, until Annie stops abruptly; when Finnick stops a step later, she tugs him back toward her. Feeling a little daring - he did tell her loves her, after all - she reaches up to trace a finger over his lips; the light touch makes him smile.

She doesn’t really know what to say in the face of what he’s told her. There’s too much to take in and she knows that when she stops to think about it all, she’ll most likely drown in the horror of it.

"Finnick, I love you." She doesn’t know when that happened, but she knows the truth of it. "When I’m with you, I feel almost like I’m whole again. Like whatever the Games took from me doesn’t so much matter anymore."

"Annie…"

She touches her finger to his mouth again, this time to silence him. “Whatever happens, I love you. And we’ll make it work.”

He smiles at her then and nothing else matters.


	36. World Slips Out of Balance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _odesta prompt where finnick finds out that the capitol has annie_

He swims slowly to the surface, becoming aware first of sounds - a rhythmic beeping, voices fading in and out of focus - before light and something approaching color drifts through his consciousness. It takes a little longer for the pain, but when that hits, it hits hard and he allows himself to sink back under.

When he wakes again, he is truly awake. He starts to sit up, but falls back into the thin pillow beneath his head almost immediately. His vision grays out at the edges and a ringing begins in his ears. He closes his eyes again even as he tries to lift his arms, but something tugs them back down and opens his eyes once more, looks down at his body.

He lies on a narrow cot and there are wires and tubes attaching him to machines that monitor his vital signs. A white sheet covers his body and there’s a white band around his right wrist; there’s writing on it, but he can’t make it out. Turning his head to the left, he sees Katniss lying on a similar cot, also hooked up to monitors. Beetee lies beyond her. Moving more slowly this time, Finnick sits up by inches, pushing past the dizziness and ignoring the increased ringing in his ears. The three cots on the other side of the room are empty.

"Ah, Finnick. You’re awake." Finnick blinks a couple of times and Plutarch Heavensbee’s jovial face comes into focus as a woman in some kind of gray uniform hurries over to his cot, checking the readings on the monitors before consulting some kind of notes on a clipboard at the end of the cot.

"Where are Johanna and Peeta?" Finnick asks, his voice sounding rusty, little more than a croak. All he can remember is chaos and Katniss rising through it, sending an arrow into the night sky as the lightning hit the tree, and then everything falling spectacularly apart. When Heavensbee doesn’t answer, Finnick looks at him sharply. "Plutarch? Where are Jo and Peeta?" The Gamemaker’s gaze slides away and he takes a step back from Finnick’s cot, toward the empty cots where Finnick’s friends are not.

Katniss’ and Beetee’s monitors beep steadily on, but Finnick’s beeps faster, keeping pace with his rising agitation, his growing fear. “Where are they, Plutarch?”

"Please, Mr. Odair," the woman implores him, "calm down. You’ve experienced a very strong electrical shock and we don’t know yet how extensive the damage is. Your heart—"

"Don’t tell me to calm down. I don’t care about my heart. Where are my friends?" He’s practically shouting and he can hear rapid footsteps pounding toward them.

"What the hell’s going on?" Haymitch Abernathy asks as he enters the room. After a glance at Finnick, he glares at Heavensbee. "What did you tell him?"

Plutarch raises his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I’ve told him nothing. You asked that I wait for you.”

"Whatever it is, just tell me," Finnick says, his frustration clear as he looks at Haymitch. "Where are Johanna and Peeta?" He feels like he’s been asking that same question for days and his head is pounding.

Haymitch rests his hands on the end of Finnick’s cot, leaning in toward Finnick. His gaze is intense. “Finnick, we’re going to do everything we can. You’ve got to understand that, but…”

His reticence and Heavensbee’s uncharacteristic nervousness combine to make Finnick’s fears and his heart rate spike. “Haymitch, please.”

"We couldn’t get them out. The Capitol has them and Enobaria."

"What are you not telling me?" Finnick asks with growing dread.

"Finnick, there was a raid into District Four."

"What?" The words make no sense to him, as though Haymitch is speaking some language Finnick can’t understand.

"They have Annie, Finnick."

He stares at his friend. The beeping of his monitors is wild and erratic. He can feel the blood rushing through his veins, feel it roaring in his ears, drowning out the ringing as his vision blurs and the world slips out of balance.

"No."


	37. Siblings 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Haymitch, siblings

_“Go on back, now, Ash, you hear me? You’re supposed to be in school.”_

_“So’re you, Hay. I want to help.”_

_“Well I don’t want your help. Go home.”_

Haymitch stopped walking, staring down at the loamy, leafy ground. He could barely see the disturbance in the leaves that told him where his trap line lay, but it wasn’t because he’d laid it so well – he had – but because of the sudden mist that clouded his vision.

“I didn’t mean it, Ash,” he whispered, dashing away the moisture that leaked from his eyes. He’d give anything for Ash’s help now.


	38. Siblings 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finnick Odair, siblings

“Aw, come on, Shandra,” Finnick whined. “You and Rob have all night to make kissy face.”

His sister’s eyes widened and she threw the towel she held in her hands right at his head. Finnick grinned cheekily at her as he caught it and his grin only widened when her boyfriend, Rob Conmara, winked at him.

“Finnick Odair, I can’t believe you said that!”

“What? I’m eight! I know all about that icky girl stuff.”

Shandra turned red and Rob laughed. “Finn, buddy, you really don’t.” He turned to Shandra, grinning. “But I did promise to teach him to surf…”


	39. Siblings 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Johanna Mason, siblings

At five, Elliot was getting awfully big for her, but still Johanna swung him up; he wrapped his arms around her neck, choking her. “I don’t want you to go,” he wailed right into her left ear, but she forced herself not to wince or cry; her little brother cried enough for them both.

“I don’t want to go, El, but I have to.” Another sob escaped the boy and she clung to him more tightly.

The door opened. “It’s time,” a Peacekeeper said, but her other brothers – Reed and Micah – blocked him.

“Not yet,” Micah, the oldest, denied him.


	40. Speed Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How about Hayhanna speed dating?

_Buzzzzzz. Shuffle seats. Quick greeting. Inane chit chat. Buzzzzzz._

Over and over. Too many colors, affected accents, affectations. She’s not the only victor in the room, but she is the newest. Johanna has only been at this for a few weeks and already she hates fundraisers. The buzzer sounds and she shifts.

An older man, with dark hair and olive skin, he wears black and could stand to lose a little weight, but his eyes. He has the most remarkable gray eyes, if a bit bloodshot. He holds out his hand.

“I’m—”

“Haymitch Abernathy,” she finishes with a grin.


	41. ... the existing pool of victors.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finnick and Annie, last time they see each other before the Quell. Or, F&A finding out about the "twist" for the Quell rules. 
> 
> (Treading Water 'verse)

Annie swims slowly to the surface, rising up from sleep. She is warm, but feels the chill in the air outside her cocoon of blankets and so snuggles back against Finnick, who tightens his arms around her, still mostly asleep. Pushing her face into her pillow, she finds his hand near her hip and twines her fingers with his.

The pads of her fingers catch a little on something wrapped around his hand and suddenly everything comes rushing in on her - the announcement of the upcoming Quarter Quell, the president’s voice as read the card, “…the existing pool of victors…” - and Annie gasps. She stiffens in Finnick’s arms and he’s awake in an instant.

"Annie, I’m here. We’re safe."

"Liar. They’re sending us back to the arena." She can feel the tears burning her eyes and blinks them angrily back.

Finnick hesitates a moment before he says, “There’s more than just us to choose from. It might not happen.” Annie doesn’t believe that any more than he does. Rather than call him on it, she strokes the bandage around his hand.

"What happened?" she asks, then drags his hand up to place a kiss on his knuckles.

"I broke a glass." He doesn’t elaborate and Annie frowns even as she cradles his damaged hand against her cheek.

"Was your mother here?" She thinks she remembers that, Finnick’s mother sitting on the edge of the bed, talking to her son, and then coaxing Annie to drink something that made her sleep, but it’s fuzzy. A subtle haze surrounds everything and she’s not sure if it was real or a dream.

"She was," Finnick confirms. He flexes his fingers, buries his face in the curve of her neck and shoulder, his warm breath in her hair tickling her skin. "She stitched up the cuts before she left."

Annie closes her eyes. “I’m scared, Finnick.”

"We’ll get through this Annie. I don’t know how, but we’ll get through it."


	42. Noisy Birds and Lullabies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Annie and Finnick taking care of their baby
> 
> (Victorious 'verse)

It started as as a whimper, but before long, little Maggie was screaming at the top of her lungs. Annie reluctantly threw back the covers and started to get up, but Finnick stopped her with a hand at her shoulder.

"Go back to sleep, love. It’s my turn." She watched as he padded over to the crib and gently lifted their shrieking daughter into his arms.

"What’s the matter, baby girl?" he asked her, bouncing her lightly as he began to pace back and forth, back and forth. "If you’re not careful, you’re going to set DB to copying you, and nobody wants that.” Annie grinned and glanced at the macaw on his perch by the window; he was watching Finnick and Maggie, too, but so far, he hadn’t chimed in.

The baby’s shrieks slowly turned to hiccuping sobs as Finnick walked. He began to softly sing and the sobs faded to hitching breaths. DB began to warble along with the lullaby, the bird’s voice switching back and forth between male and female like a pair of backup singers and Annie could hear the suppressed laughter in her husband’s voice.

"I’m just thankful he decided to chime in with you and not Maggie," Annie whispered when Finnick slid back into bed a few minutes later.

"No kidding," he replied and then rolled on top of her, an impish look in his eyes. "Now where were we?"


	43. Like the Thinnest of Blades

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> odesta~ annie seeing finick for the first time after she just wins her games

He hears her screaming before he’s anywhere near the door to the infirmary. It’s his first time in that part of the Games complex since they pulled him from his own arena five years before; the memories aren’t pleasant.

Annie’s screams are worse than any of his own memories, slicing through him like the thinnest of blades, leaving his nerve endings raw.

Strapped to a bed, surrounded by people in blue masks and shapeless suits, Annie struggles to break free. Her voice is much louder now, almost deafening in the smallish room. A puddle of wet fabric lies on the floor, probably her arena uniform.

"Stop that awful caterwauling. You should be grateful you’re alive at all, you pathetic—"

"Shut up!" Finnick’s angry shout, loud enough to be heard across a heaving deck in a pounding storm, cuts off the man’s harsh voice with no trouble at all. Annie stops screaming, too, and Finnick continues, his volume lower but his voice no less angry, "Not you, Annie." He glares at the medic. "You scream as loud and as long as you want."

Instead of screaming, she stops struggling against the canvas straps holding her down. “Finnick?” His name is a ragged sound, rough at the edges. “Is it over?”

He hurries to the bedside and the other medic-types in the room clear him a path. Snagging a chair with his foot, he jerks it closer to her bed and sits, taking her near hand into both of his. Her skin is cold, clammy from spending hours in the water, but the light in her green eyes is warm and alive. He smiles at her and she seems to relax back into the pillow beneath her head.

"Yeah, Annie, it’s over. You’re alive, and in a few days, we can go home."


	44. to feel the cool salt water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> annie getting reaped

Annie watches a seagull fly overhead, bright white against the blue, blue sky, when the whispering around her begins. The bird circles the clock tower atop the Justice Building twice before landing at the pinnacle when the whispers finally resolve into words.

_… just a little girl…_

_… too young…_

_… shouldn’t someone volunteer…?_

_… volunteer…_

She looks up when her friend Gina elbows her in the side. “What?” Gina’s always elbowing her in the side. Annie is surprised her ribs aren’t a mass of bruises.

Gina points toward the stage and Annie follows where she points, toward the group of thirteens near the bottom of the stage. The youngest - the twelves - are the closest, five groups ahead of Annie and Gina. One little girl, dark hair in a braid down her back, stands alone just off center of a circle of other girls her age as the whispers trail off and silence reigns.

Her gaze sweeping around the assembly, stopping for a moment at the other kids gathered for the reaping, at the adults separated from their children by velvet ropes, movement on the stage draws Annie’s attention. District 4’s youngest victor, Finnick Odair, his famous bronze hair blowing in the salt breeze that also ruffles the thin fabric of the loose shirt he wears, takes a step toward the front of the stage, but old Mags, the district’s first victor, stops him with a hand on his arm.

Behind the microphone, Feathery Phineas LaSalle clears his throat. “Shevanne Rivera, please step up to the stage.”

"I can’t believe they’re going to let a thirteen year old go," Gina whispers.

"They can’t!" Annie returns. "Look at her! She’s smaller than some of the twelves!" Her heart begins to pound as the whispers rise again. The gull she watched moments before swoops down from the clock tower, making shrill seagull demands. Mags reaches up to cup Finnick’s face before gripping his arms with both hands as she says something to him and he looks down at the little girl, the other twelves opening a path through their ranks as she walks toward the stage.

"I volunteer!" The words ring out over the square and Gina gasps. Annie fumbles for her friend’s hand and squeezes it once before she lets her go, raises her own hand and shouts, "I’ll take her place as tribute!"

"Annie, what—?" Gina doesn’t finish, takes a step back from Annie, just like the other girls behind the ropes with them.

Her heart still pounding, the screeling of the gull melding with the whispers of the crowd and with the rushing of the blood in her veins, Annie straightens her spine and walks with her head high to the steps leading up to the stage. A bubble of silence follows in her wake, but it doesn’t take long for the whispers to start again. 

She hears her name repeated over and over as a mantra plays in her head. _I can do this. I’m trained. I’m ready. I can do this. I’m trained. I’m ready._ She ignores the little voice threaded through underneath that tells her, _You’re only seventeen. You haven’t had that final year of training._ It isn’t until a familiar voice says her name and her head whips around to find the speaker that both of the voices inside her heard fall silent.

An old woman, skin weathered by sun and salt and sea to leather, her normally lively green eyes a stark contrast in her wizened face, reaches a hand toward Annie and she flinches as though struck a harsh blow.

"Gran…" There are tears in her grandmother’s eyes, but mingled with the fear, the grief, the shock is something that looks almost like pride. _Oh, no. What have I done?_

Before she can think it through, Annie whirls around and bolts toward the edge of the square, heading in the direction of the public docks. She hears shouts behind her, pounding footsteps giving chase, but she doesn’t look back and she doesn’t stop, dodging obstacles both human and not, until she reaches the docks and the beach beyond, deserted because of the reaping.

Even then, she doesn’t stop, suddenly needing to feel the cool salt water of the sea on her skin. When she can’t run any longer, she swims, lets the welcoming waves wash over her. A gull cries out overhead and she wonders if it’s the same one she watched in the square. She hears another cry, but this one is deeper, not nearly as thin as the gull’s voice. Rolling with the waves, Annie treads water, turning back toward shore.

The man in the water between her and land shouts again, and this time she can hear the panic in his voice. I know how feel, she thinks, even as she lies flat on the water and begins to swim again, heading toward the Peacekeeper bobbing on the waves. His partner stands on the end of the docks, gesturing wildly and shouting at him, at Annie, his own anger and fear a dark cloud around him. Annie continues with steady, rapid strokes toward the drowning Peacekeeper.

She comes up behind him, careful to keep away from his flailing arms, and wraps one arm around him beneath his armpits. The edges of the armor cut into her fingers, but at least it gives her something to grip as she tows him back to dry land.


	45. Do you miss her?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finnick and Annie mourn Mags' death in District 13.

"Do you miss her?"

Finnick stops in the doorway to his tiny room. Annie sits on his bed in the dark, feet bare, the toes of her right foot covering those of her left. Her arms circle her upraised knees. Her eyes are wide, glittering green in the light from the hallway; the tears haven’t fallen, but they’re there. He doesn’t have to ask who.

"Every day," he tells her as he takes the two strides necessary to reach the bed. She has her own assigned room, but she’s never in it. Flouting the rules, they’ve slept here in his quarters every night since she arrived in 13. He’ll fight Coin with everything he has in him if she tries to change that. So far, no one has tried.

"She shouldn’t have volunteered for me." Her voice is tight. He sits and pulls her in close; she uncoils her limbs and rests her head on his shoulder. "Why did she do it, Finnick?"

"Because she loved you." He kisses her hair. "She loved us."

Annie sucks in a shaky breath and he knows the tears are finally falling before she says, “I never got to say goodbye. I never got to tell her thank you, or that I loved her.”

"She knew, love. Believe me, she knew."


	46. Tea and Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Odesta, Tea and rain

Finnick stares out at the falling rain and tries to lose himself in the scatter-shot pattern the heavy drops make in the sand, but it doesn’t work - he still feels ropes and teeth and cruel hands digging into his flesh even after almost a week back home.

Behind him the screen door opens with a squeak - _I’ll have to fix that sometime_ \- and closes with a bang. A second later he sees Annie’s bare feet just before she crouches with the grace of a dancer to press a steaming cup into his hand.

Pushing her hair behind her left ear, she leans in to kiss him lightly on the forehead. “I made some tea and thought you might likes some.” The sympathy and understanding in her beautiful green eyes is almost more than he can take.


	47. Rainbows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finnick/Annie, rainbows

"Hey, Annie, turn around," Finnick says, coming up behind her on the beach; she didn’t hear him approach past the sound of surf and the rain splattering against her wet hair and shirt. She spins around, still walking backwards, her sodden skirt tangling up her legs so that she has to yank it out from between her knees to keep from stumbling, but then she looks up to see Finnick, his arms spread wide in a grand gesture toward the twin paths of brilliant pastel colors in the sky. 

Even as she gasps at the beauty of it, he catches up to her and pulls her into the wet circle of his arms, rests his chin on the top of her head. “I knew you’d want to see it.”


	48. Wedding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Odesta, at their son's wedding.

After the ceremony and the vows, after the feast, after their son leads his new wife, still wearing the wedding net he wove for her over her long, dark hair, into their first dance as a married couple, Finnick pulls Annie into his arms. She goes more than willingly, stretching up on bare toes - she had long since kicked off her shoes, preferring the feel of the sun-warmed sand to the constriction of leather and plastic - to wrap her arms around his neck and pull his head down to hers.

Finnick brushes his lips across Annie's mouth and then rests his forehead on hers. “I never dreamed anything as good as this, love, watching that little boy we made launch a life and a family of his own.”


	49. Gone Fishin'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mags & Finnick, Gone Fishin'

Finnick stumbles through his kitchen to the back door wearing nothing but a pair of loose shorts, hastily thrown on - he’s pretty sure he managed to put them on backwards, somehow - grousing the entire time about how dark it is, that the sun isn’t even _thinking_ about rising yet, and there had better be a good reason for this, only to find Mags on the other side of the door. She has a pair of fishing poles in one hand, a woven wicker basket in the other, and a floppy sun hat on her head.

She answers his unspoken “what the hell?” with a cheeky grin and a shake of her fishing gear. “Get dressed, hijo, we are going to the other side of the island, and I will not take ‘no’ for an answer.”

Hours later, “heartthrob from District 4” and “sexiest man in Panem,” Finnick Odair dangles his feet off a ramshackle dock beside the old woman who is no blood relation but a much-loved family member nonetheless. Their fishing lines float in a man-made pond that’s never been stocked with fish. The early morning sun and the salt breeze, the call of the gulls and the song of the distant waves wash away the stench and the stain of the Capitol, and for the first time in weeks, Finnick allows himself to relax.


	50. Strip Club

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Odesta, strip club

Annie watches in fascination as the woman works the crowd, dancing her way along the elevated, wave-shaped stage and leaving a lazily floating trail of filmy, colorful cloth to drift slowly down in her wake; whether the patron is male or female doesn’t seem to matter as a translucent ribbon of turquoise silk caresses Annie’s face.

She can feel Finnick’s gaze follow that silken path as he asks, a note of trepidation in his voice, “Should we leave?” She knows he's worried she might lose it with so many strangers around, especially those who are close enough to touch her. She's fine, not even a wisp of anxiety, but she needs to let Finnick see that for himself.

Laughing, her voice as low and sexy as she can make it, Annie replies, “Not until I’m done taking notes for later.”


	51. Nightclub

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finnick x Annie, a nightclub

Annie sees Finnick approach, a drink in each hand, and tells the man who usurped his chair at the bar, “Thanks for the offer, but I already have a drink.” Sliding off the tall chair, the green sequins adorning her dress glittering and flashing with her movements, Annie first takes the drinks from Finnick’s hands and sets them on the bar, and then she takes hold of his tie and leads him unprotesting to the dance floor. Finnick shoots the unlucky bastard a smirk on his way past, just before spinning Annie away into the gyrating crowd.


	52. The Proposal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finnick proposes to Annie. :)

Annie doesn’t know where Finnick is leading her, but it doesn’t matter. They’re alive and they’re together. Everything else is just details.

"You’re not peeking, are you?" he asks and laughter bubbles up inside her, buoying her up as though she were lighter than air. She tries to hold it in - he sounds so serious. She scrunches her eyes more tightly shut, but then she stumbles and the laughter breaks free even as Finnick’s hand tightens on hers, keeping her from falling.

Still giggling, she informs him, “If I were peeking, it would be a lot easier to walk.”

"Good point." He lifts their joined hands to his lips and kisses her knuckles. "We’re almost there."

"But where is there?"

He stops and swings her around and she comes up hard against his chest. Slipping his arms around her, he lifts her and gently sets her down again. “There is here.” The floor here, wherever here is, drops several inches from the path they followed a moment ago. He follows her down, stopping behind her and pulling her back against him, resting his chin lightly on the top of her head. “You can open your eyes now.”

They’re in a cavernous room, the ceiling so far above that she can’t find it in the darkness that not even the lantern burning in the center of the chamber can hold at bay. But that light kisses blackened, melted walls and makes them sparkle and glitter like myriad tiny stars.

"Oh…" she breathes and Finnick smiles into her hair before once more taking her hand and leading her toward the blanket on which the lantern rests. There’s a box on the edge of the blanket, a pair of plates and glasses, a pitcher of something nearer the light.

"This part of the bunker was abandoned years ago," he tells her, "after a pretty major fire. Plutarch says it’s fine structurally, but it was too much effort for too little return for them to repair things. Katniss and I found it during an ‘unauthorized excursion.’" Annie looks up at him - those last two words sounded so much like Alma Coin that she bites back another laugh.

Finnick crouches in front of the box to rummage through it, pulling out first a couple of wrapped sandwiches that he sets on the plates. But then he pulls something else from the box that he stares at for a moment, holding it so that she can’t see it.

She starts to come around him, but he turns toward her, balances on one knee, and says, “Stop.” She stops.

"Finnick, what…?"

"We’re not allowed outside the bunker at night. Too dangerous." He reaches for her hand and places the thing he’s holding into her palm, then closes her fingers around it. He’s still holding both her hands in his when says, "I always wanted to give you the moon and the stars, Annie. This is the closest I can get." Her heart is pounding in her chest, her pulse racing when he continues, "Annie Cresta, will you marry me?"

Annie looks down into his beautiful green eyes and then looks at her closed fist. Slowly, she opens her fingers. In the palm of her hand is a ring, just a simple band of pale metal that shines in the lantern’s light. She looks at Finnick again and he looks so worried, suddenly. A smile spreads across her face.

"Yes, Finnick Odair, I will marry you." She slips the ring onto the ring finger of her left hand. Finnick wanted to give her the moon and the stars, but with his answering smile, he gives her the sun.


	53. Lust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Odesta - Lust

Finnick came home from the Capitol a day earlier than expected – his final patron had canceled their “date” due to sudden illness and Snow actually let Finnick off the hook. It was his granddaughter’s birthday and the old bastard was feeling generous, although Finnick had no doubt he’d pay for it later, when he returned to the Capitol for the Games.

He called to Annie when he walked in the door, not wanting to startle her, but there was no answer. All the doors and windows were wide open, allowing the freshening breeze to run riot through the house. Rain was heading in from the east, he could smell the water in the air, and Finnick hurriedly closed the windows on the front side of the house, leaving the western ones open. While he closed windows, he called again to Annie, but there was still no answer and he began to worry. The last time he’d come home to all the doors and windows open, he’d found her curled up in a ball on the floor, locked inside herself. They still didn’t know how long she’d been that way, although the bits and pieces she remembered indicated it was only a few hours.

A gust of wind set the curtains in the living room billowing and then it died out. The air grew still, the silence of the empty house almost deafening. It was as though the whole world paused, waiting for something. Suddenly the skies opened up, the rain falling in gray sheets to pound on the roof and spatter against the windows he’d just closed.

"Annie!" Finnick shouted one last time and then headed into the kitchen to call Mags, hoping she was with her. That’s when he spotted her out on the beach, white shorts and blue t-shirt and long dark hair clinging to her skin from the deluge. Rather than curling up in a ball in the midst of a flashback, Annie danced alone in the rain. He stopped and stared through the open doorway, his hand still on the phone. Relief flooded through him. He held his breath and then released it in a whoosh of air, feeling a little light-headed.

Letting his hand fall away from the phone, Finnick walked through the door and onto the porch, still sheltered from the rain, now a steady shower rather than the flood of before. Annie spun around on her toes, her arms wide and her face lifted to the rain. In spite of the distance, Finnick could see she was smiling and the tightness of fear eased. She twirled faster, her hair flying out around her shoulders in wet ropes, and Finnick started down the steps toward her.

Before he even made it down to the beach, she stopped dancing to bend over a tidal pool. Reaching toward something in the pool, Annie squatted to get a better vantage and scooped up whatever was trapped there, probably a crab or a starfish. She was forever rescuing things that washed up in their little cove, releasing them back into the water; it was as if she were constantly trying to atone for the two lives she’d taken in the arena.

Running to the water with what looked like a large sea cucumber in her arms, Annie sloshed a few feet in until the water was just above her knees to drop the creature where it might have a chance to live. Finnick was close enough to hear her laugh again, not even a hint of darkness to the sound. He stopped on the beach just above the water, his expensive shoes, ruined now, barely sank into the hard-packed sand. The sight of her body, clinging blue and white fabric leaving little to the imagination, the sound of her laugh, joyous and free, sent a spike of pure lust shooting through him, quickly followed by guilt and shame.

He wanted her, wanted to pick her up and carry her back to their room and fuck her. Nothing so pretty and easy and tame as making love. He closed his eyes, his hands balled into fists at his sides. How could he think about her that way? The same way those who used him thought of him? He stood there, at the water’s edge, as the rain continued to fall, and he couldn’t swallow past the lump in his throat.

"Finnick!" He opened his eyes just in time to see Annie running full tilt through the water, splashing mightily with each stride. She picked up speed when she reached the sand and he had just enough time to brace himself to catch her as she launched herself into his arms. He spun them both around to keep his balance, to keep from falling. He didn’t want to hurt her, not now, not ever again. For her sake, he pushed the lust and the guilt and the shame back into the dark corners where they belonged, where they couldn’t touch her.


	54. Worthless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Odesta - Worthless

"Why are you here?"

Finnick blinks, frowns, unable to quite process Annie’s question. Feeling more than a little stupid, he finishes pouring his coffee - a generous dollop of cream and half a dozen sugars - and turns toward where she stands in the doorway, one of his sweaters wrapped tightly around her. Even with the extra time, he can’t come up with an answer and finally he says, half smiling, “It’s my house?”

There is no answering smile and it slowly dawns on him that, for whatever reasons, she’s slipping away from him, sliding back down into the abyss the arena opened for her months ago. He slowly leans back against the kitchen counter, coffee mug held tightly between suddenly cold hands. Whatever he says, whatever he does could be the difference between bringing her back or losing her altogether.

"I don’t understand, Annie." She watches him intently, green gaze focusing on his eyes, never leaving them.

"Why are you here?" she repeats. "With me?"

"I’m here with you because there’s nowhere else I’d rather be." As he says it, he realizes it’s nothing but the truth. When he’s with Annie, he feels whole again. A real person. A human being, someone worth talking to, listening to, worth the oxygen he breathes. Not just some glorified blow up doll. "Why do you ask?"

She seems to shrink in on herself as she pulls the sweater tighter. Turning slightly away from him, she presses her back against one side of the doorway. Closing her eyes, she leans her head back against the jamb. “You’re so…” She swallows hard. “You’re so… You’re strong and you’re kind and you’re so beautiful.” She slides down until she’s sitting, her bare knees in the air. “I’m nothing. All I do is breathe.”

The pain in her voice, her words mirroring his own thoughts, rips through him like a knife. Blinking back tears, Finnick sets his untouched coffee on the counter and pads over to her, dropping down to sit beside her but careful not to touch.

"Annie, look at me." He watches her struggle, unable to tell if she’s fighting to do as he asks or to keep herself from it. In the end, after scrunching her eyes tightly shut like a child, she opens them wide, turning her head slightly to focus on him. Only then does he reach out to cup her face, gently stroking the pad of his thumb over her lower lip. She leans into his hand like a cat; he doesn’t think she’s even aware she’s doing it.

Smiling, he tells her, “Annie, you’re not nothing. You’re everything. You’re the sun and the moon and the stars and the sea.” She blinks, her eyes brimming with tears as she reaches up to close her fingers around his wrist. “You’re my reason for breathing.” He feels the wetness as she moves to kiss the palm of his hand.


	55. Ashamed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Johanna Mason - Ashamed

Both hands braced on the granite countertop, Johanna leans toward the mirror. She doesn’t recognize the girl in the glass, painted like a ( _whore_ ) doll, glittering dress clinging to her body. Her dark eyes are empty. Everything about her is empty. Where there was once a sixteen-year-old girl with hopes and dreams and a smart mouth ( _I’ll show you what that mouth is for_ ), there now stands a seventeen-year-old ( _victim_ ) victor, broken and ashamed. Gripping the granite edge until it hurts, she resists the urge to smash her fist into the reflection’s smart mouth. Instead, she pushes back from the mirror and splashes cold water into her face, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.


	56. All Surface, No Substance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gale and Annie in the Capitol post-war

Annie hates the Capitol. She didn’t always. Once, when she was a child, before she knew anything of the Hunger Games except the spectacle of it all, she thought she might want to visit the Capitol one day and see all the bright colors and hear all the sweet sounds for herself. That was before she knew it was all surface, no substance. Or rather that the substance below the surface had long since rotted, becoming something dark and ugly and cruel.

She doesn’t want to be here now, away from Riley and the warmth and comforts of her own hard-won home. But President Paylor wants to commemorate Freedom Day by a presentation to the heroes of the war - or their survivors. Riley is too young to travel, and even though there were others available who could stand in Finnick’s place, the president wanted Annie, so here she is in the Capitol, leaving her son with his aunt.

Pulling her coat more tightly around her in an attempt to cut off the cold draft that somehow manages to slip beneath the quilted fabric no matter what she does, Annie hurries from the train station to the presentation site just a few blocks away. Another gust of winter wind blows the hood from her head and sets her hair free to wrap around her face and neck, to whip across her eyes. Why did I think it would be a good idea to walk?

She rounds a corner and runs into a man coming out of a shop. He’s very solid and the impact sends her reeling backward, but before she falls, he grabs hold of her arm and pulls her back from the street.

"Whoa there!" he exclaims, juggling the package he holds in his other hand, but he can’t quite save it. Annie can, though, and dives for it, snagging the handle before it drops too far.

She starts to hand it back to him, but stops midway when he says, “Annie?” She looks up into gray eyes beneath heavy dark brows.

"Gale?" she asks, startled. She takes a step back out of the wind and offers him the package she rescued. He looks good, healthy. After he dropped her and Mrs. Everdeen in District 4 on his way to District 2, she never thought she’d see him again. "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing."

"There’s some kind of presentation President Paylor wanted me here for." Gale nods as she speaks.

"Me, too. That’s where I was headed, until I stopped in here," he nods toward the shop, "to pick up something for my little sister." Annie looks up at the sign above and then at the display window. It’s a toy shop. She’s sure it was garish and filled with cheaply made toys too expensive for anyone from the districts to afford before the war, but now she thinks she might have to come back and see if there’s anything Riley might like.

Gale smiles at her then, the expression edging out the severity of his features - he looks like a soldier even now, more than a year after the war. “Since we seem to be headed to the same place…”


	57. Happy Birthday

Annie watches him sleep, grateful for the peace of it. Sprawled across their bed on his stomach, one foot hanging over the side, Finnick’s breathing is slow and even, a sharp contrast to a few hours before, when he fought someone or something in his dreams. She slides naked from the bed, careful not to wake him - there’ll be time enough for that later.

She grabs a shirt from the end of the bed and pulls it on; as it turns out, it’s Finnick’s, hanging from her slim shoulders almost to her knees. Winding her hair up into a knot at the base of her neck, Annie pads barefoot to the kitchen to make some tea and a little something for breakfast to celebrate Finnick’s twenty-third birthday. His family will be coming out to Victors’ Island later that afternoon for the potluck meal Mags organized. All the other District 4 victors and their families will be there. Too many people. She’s really not looking forward to it, but she’ll do her best to get through it for Finnick. And, too, she doesn’t want to disappoint Mags.

A few minutes later, Annie returns to the bedroom, tray in hand laden with freshly squeezed orange juice and griddle cakes smeared with melted butter and then loaded with cane sugar and cinnamon. Finnick hasn’t moved. Gently setting the tray down on the dresser, she moves to the side of the bed and kneels so that her face is on an even keel with his.

He looks younger when he sleeps, the lines of his face more relaxed, less wary. Long lashes fan out beneath closed eyes; his lids flutter when she blows on his face, and then she’s looking into the most beautiful eyes she’s ever seen.

"Hey," he says, a sleepy smile spreading out at the sight of her.

"Happy birthday," she returns, leaning in that last inch to kiss the end of his nose.

Before she can pull away, Finnick’s arm snakes out and wraps around her shoulders. He rolls to his back, dragging her with him, and a startled giggle escapes her lips. Struggling for a second or three, she shifts until she’s straddling his body. Her hair, which came undone during the tussle, is a dark curtain pooling across his shoulders and the pillow on either side of his head as he grins up at her.

But then his eyes seem to darken, his gaze intensifies as he focuses on Annie’s mouth. “Kiss me, Annie.” She starts to lower her face to his and he murmurs, “Mouth, not nose.” Smiling, she brushes her lips lightly over his, barely touching him and pulls back again with an impudent grin of her own. “It’s my birthday, woman, you have to do what I say.”

"I don’t remember that anywhere in the rules," she tells him even as she leans down again to slant her mouth over his, nipping at his lower lip and then licking to soothe the spot.

It isn’t until much later she remembers the breakfast she made, sitting forgotten on the dresser.


	58. Mirrors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All of the mirrors in the house were covered.

When Annie first saw the interior of Finnick’s house, all the mirrors were covered. Covered with sheets. Covered with scribbled notes. Covered with dried flowers or seaweed. Covered with photographs. Of family. Of friends. Advertisements from magazines and newspapers. There were no openly, cleanly reflective surfaces anywhere.

When she asked him why, all he said was, “The house belongs to the Capitol. I can’t remove anything from it.”

It wasn’t until later that she understood just how much he hated the unexpected sight of himself. He hated how he looked. He hated how others looked at him. Hated how his looks made him a thing to be coveted rather than a human being worthy of respect. Mostly he hated how he had to accept it all, how he had to be complicit in his own abuse to protect those he loved.

It took her a while, but Annie understood Finnick’s hatred of mirrors. It was either that, or hate himself.


	59. Annie's Star

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Odesta, lonely

She lies on the beach and listens to the sea's chaotic song, the stars brilliant points of light above her in the black velvet sky. The moon is no more than a sliver, barely peeking over the horizon – not that she can see it from her vantage, anyway – offering too little light to compete against the brightness of the stars.

_He lies on the roof of the Training Center, listening to the wind chimes’ atonal song, the few visible stars brilliant points of light above him in the glowing gray sky. The moon is just a sliver, barely peeking over the horizon – not that he can see it from his vantage, anyway – too weak to compete with the ever-present lights of the Capitol._

A gust of wind blows in from the water, bringing with it a million tiny drops from the waves rolling and roiling up from the deep. Annie closes her eyes for just a moment but then opens them again. There's no point in fighting back the tears that mingle on her cheeks with the salt spray; there's no one to see them, no one to question them or to wonder why she's out here alone at all. The myriad stars above disappear in a watery haze.

_A gust of wind moans eerily through the garden and its chimes, a jangling cacophony that sends chilly fingers dancing up his spine. Finnick closes his eyes for just a moment but then opens them again. Only a handful of stars shine brightly enough to break through the haze of the Capitol night, but it doesn't really matter; he's sure he's the only one in this monstrosity of a city who bothers to look at them._

Finnick has been gone for more than a week and she misses him. And she feels guilty for missing him, knowing what he's going through in the Capitol. But wandering around the empty house, so lifeless without him there, is the loneliest feeling in the world. The only place Annie feels at all close to him when he's gone is out here under the night sky, looking at the constellations until she finally locates the one Finnick once told her the navigational charts call Polaris, but that he calls Annie's star. She'd laughed when he said it and asked him why; he'd told her it was the one star he could always find, even in the Capitol, and that it could always lead him home.

_Finnick has been away from Annie for more than a week and he misses her. He's glad she isn't here with him, but going from party to party, patron to patron, constantly surrounded by people, he's never felt so lonely. And so here he is, in the one place in the city where he can feel at least a little closer to her. Scanning the sky, he finds Polaris -- Annie's star -- and smiles, imagining her lying on the beach looking up at the same star and thinking of him._


	60. Conversation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Finnick and Annie's first conversation after her games (they've been avoiding each other since her victory)

Finnick hadn’t seen Annie for three days. He’d gone to visit her in the hospital - or started to - half a dozen times during those endless three days, but every time he stopped himself. Now she was back in the District 4 suites, released just that morning, but he still hadn’t gone to talk to her. Her room was just down the hall from his. She was alive, and she was going to stay that way. Why couldn’t he just go talk to her? He was her mentor - if nothing else, he had to to prepare her for the final interview with Flickerman, later that night, prepare her for just how awful that would be, being forced to relive it all from a uniquely, disturbingly Capitol perspective.

"Right," he said aloud and pushed himself up from his chair. He was through his door and down that hallway before he could stop himself again, but before he reached her door, he saw it open, saw her pretty face and a flash of long hair, of green eyes and purple silk, just before she slammed the door in his face; he stopped just short of being clipped.

"Annie?" He rapped his knuckles on the door, his heart beating just a bit faster than it should be. When she didn’t answer, he knocked again. "Annie," he called, "we have to talk."

"I don’t want to talk to you." Her voice sounded like it was just on the other side of the door, inches from his, but years and miles away. It occurred to him then that maybe she’d been avoiding him, too.

"Open the door, Annie." When she still didn’t open it, he pounded on it once with his fist in utter frustration before turning away. He was almost back to his room when he heard her door open.

"What did you want to say to me?" she asked and he turned around.

She stood centered in the hallway, her arms crossed beneath her breasts and a mutinous expression on her face. That beautiful hair was a riot of curls around her shoulders and he saw that purple was only one of the colors in the dress she wore.

"Your prep team has already been here," he said, surprised.

"That’s what you wanted to say?" Where before her expression was mutinous, now it was more bemused. He shook his head and huffed a laugh.

"No. We need to talk about tonight’s interview."

"I don’t suppose I could skip it…?" she asked, drawing in on herself a bit.

He shook his head. “No. I’m sorry.”

Her shoulders slumped and she seemed to grow smaller. “Do we have to talk about it here?” she implored.

He stared at her for a moment, seeing again the bedraggled girl, frightened and half-starved, that they’d pulled dripping from that watery arena. She hadn’t seemed to be aware then that she was alive, that she was going home. He snorted again. She wouldn’t really be going home at all, though, would she? He certainly hadn’t, even though the sights and sounds and smells were achingly familiar.

Taking her hand in his, all his doubts about talking to her melting away, he led her to the elevator. “Let’s go up to the roof. We can talk about it there.” One fine eyebrow shot up and she looked at him warily, and he could tell that she was remembering what he’d told her when he’d introduced her to the Training Center roof a million years ago.

It was about the only place in the Capitol where they might speak freely. He wasn’t sure he could bring himself to tell her everything she might expect, but at least their conversation wouldn’t be overheard.


	61. Panic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Odesta Prompt: Finnick starts having panic attacks and Annie helps him through one of them.

"Finnick!" Annie opened her back door and all but threw herself into the arms of the man standing there. The impact was hard enough to make him take a step backward and they both laughed as he caught her, steadying them both. "You’re back," she murmured into the crook of his neck and shoulder, her lips against his warm, slightly salty skin. "I’ve missed you so much." Her fingers curled into his hair at the back of his neck.

She felt his whole body go stiff as he sucked in a lungful of air and held it. His arms remained at his sides and she could feel it, too, when his hands clenched into fists, feel his muscles tremble with pent up energy.

Releasing him, she took a step back and looked up at him. His pupils were dilated, allowing just the thinnest line of green iris to show in the late-afternoon sunlight. His jaw worked frantically, and she couldn’t tell if he was trying to say something and couldn’t, or if he was trying desperately not to say anything.

"Finnick," she whispered, "what did I do?"

He looked down at her then, instead of staring off into space, and took a step backward and another until his back came up against her porch railing. He slid down it until he sat with his knees drawn up to his chest. “It’s not you, Annie.” She could barely hear him. “Not you.” He hit the back of his head deliberately against the column behind his back. “Never you,” he whispered, his breath coming in short, sharp pants, his eyes full of things she couldn’t see.

She took a step toward him and he stiffened again, his muscles going rigid, and she stopped. Kneeling in front of him, careful not to touch him, she told him, “I won’t ever hurt you, Finnick.” This had to be because of what they did to him in the Capitol. She kept her voice steady and as normal as she could. “I have a pot of chowder on the stove. There’s plenty for both of us, whenever you’re hungry. And I made a loaf of bread to go with it.” She smiled as she spoke, because her Gran had always told her that you could hear a smile just as well as you could see it, maybe even better, and if Finnick needed anything right now, it was a smile. “I don’t think I’ll ever get Mags’ recipe right.” She just kept prattling on and on about dinner and walking the beach after the storm that had rolled over the island in the night and about chasing after a gull that had stolen the shell necklace she’d made for him. She’d gotten it back, but she had to get a new piece of leather for it.

He started to relax, first his muscles losing their rigidity, then his eyes closing as her voice soothed him. “I like your bread,” he told her and swallowed hard, his adam’s apple bobbing. Without opening his eyes, he held out a hand and she took it without hesitation. He pulled her into his arms to sit between his legs, her back to his chest. Resting his chin on the top of her head, he said, “Thank you.”

"For what?"

"For being you." He rubbed his face in her hair. "Just for being you."


	62. Before the Quell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finnick/Annie prompt: Finnick and Annie's thoughts before Finnick enters the Quarter Quell arena.

They sat side by side on the beach, the blanket draped across their shoulders keeping the chill breeze from their backs, the smoldering embers of the fire warming them from the front. The smell of salt mingled with the wood smoke as Annie’s vision blurred. She told herself it was just the smoke, nothing else. It was the smoke that brought the tears to her eyes.

"Maybe they won’t call your name tomorrow," she whispered. It was a cowardly and selfish thing, and she hoped the sea breeze carried it away before Finnick heard it, but she felt him shrug.

"It doesn’t matter," he said, his voice thick as he fought tears of his own.

She shifted so that she could look at him more fully in the moonlight. “It does matter.”

His eyes glittered green, almost distracting her from his words. “Annie, you know I have to do this. I gave my word.”

She laughed, the sound harsh. “So you’ll volunteer this time.”

He drew her in against his warm body and she let him. “Yes,” he confirmed what she already knew, what he’d already told his family.

"Then I’ll volunteer, too."

A sharp intake of breath, briefly held, then, “I need to know you’re safe, Annie. The girl from Twelve needs me, whether she knows it or not.”

"I need you, Finnick Odair."

He buries his face in her hair. “I know, Annie. I love you, but this is our only real chance to be free.”

"What if you die?" He didn’t know how to answer that, and Annie didn’t want him to, anyway. "If you die, you’ll be free," she answered for him, "and I’ll be alone."

"Annie…" There was anguish in his voice. The last decent sized log fell into the bright orange coals and flames licked up again, sending sparks into the sky to mingle with the faraway stars.

"Finnick, I know," she relented. Pushing him back, just a little, she lifted her hands to cradle his face, leaned forward to kiss the tracks his tears had left on his cheeks, salty on her lips. "Promise me you’ll do your best to come home, whatever happens." She kissed his mouth, murmured against his lips, "I’ll wait for you."

"I promise you, Annie Cresta, I’ll do my best to come home." They both knew his promise had unspoken conditions attached to it - his best once Katniss Everdeen was free from the arena, his best if he survived the arena himself, his best if they were able to escape the arena once whatever plan his friends had formed was implemented - but they both chose to ignore that part of it. She wished he could tell her more, but she knew he couldn’t, wouldn’t compromise their plans any more than he already had.

"We should go in, love," she told him, "try to sleep."

"I love you, Annie. I just need you to be safe or I won’t be able to function."

She laughed again. Instead of saying what they were both thinking - there is no such thing as safe - she took his hand and led him up the beach to the darkened house to wait there until the reaping.


	63. Defiant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I was tagged way more than 48 hours ago by the wonderful [purple-cube](http://purple-cube.tumblr.com) with the prompt “defiant” for the character or pairing of my choice. When I think “defiant,” I see Johanna Mason, full stop.

She’d watched as they screamed, cried, beat themselves bloody as they tried to escape, then and now. Well, maybe not then, but that never stopped her brain from filling in the blanks. Instead of smoke, it was a mass of birds’ wings, black and red and yellow and white, just the same. Instead of her family, it was her friends, one of them, anyway, and the other someone she’d pledged her life to protect, if it came to that.

 

She watched her friend now, his blank stare, as though something inside him had died, and a restless, unholy anger filled her, seeped between the cracks inside – and there were a lot of cracks, fissures and chasms that started out small the moment she first put an axe through a boy’s head, large enough and deep enough now to swallow her whole, if she let them – and began to burn. No, not anger. Rage.

 

Rage burned hot inside Johanna until she couldn’t sit still any longer. As the boy tried to calm his girl on fire – _Ha!_ Johanna laughed inside – she stalked away from them, closer to the trees, away from Snow’s mutts and the destruction they left behind. Axe in hand, she swung it at whatever it might hit, picturing Snow’s fuzzy face with every branch and leaf that connected with the sharp blade. But when Peeta mentioned Katniss’ sister, she stopped and turned back toward the group on the sandy ground.

 

Interrupting their comforting little circle jerk, spurred on by the hope she saw in Finnick’s eyes now, she spat out, “Of _course_ Peeta’s right.” She marched toward them again. “The whole country adores Katniss’ little sister. If they really killed her like this, they’d probably have an uprising on their hands. Don’t want that, do they?” Looking up at the fake sky as though searching for the Gamemakers or, better yet, their sadistic little puppet master, she shouted her defiance. “Whole country in rebellion? Wouldn’t want anything like that!” She saw again the smoldering remains of her parents’ house, her little brother’s rope swing untouched where it hung from the big oak out back, smelled the stench of charred flesh beneath the wood smoke and sawdust of home. “Hey, how’s that sound, Snow? What if we set your backyard on fire?” She felt their eyes on her, felt their dismay and their outrage and their sudden fear for her safety, but she didn’t – couldn’t – care. “You can’t. Put. Everyone. _In_ here!”

Spreading out her arms, lifting her axe high, she dared Snow and his puppets to give her their best shot. After seeing what he’d just put Finnick through, she didn’t trust Heavensbee to not. It was almost disappointing when nothing happened. Shaking her head, she lowered her arms. “I’m going for water.”


	64. Another Happy Birthday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finnick surprises Annie on her birthday, kinda fluffy

Stretching her arms out, her hand hits Finnick’s pillow; his side of the bed is cool. “Finnick?” Opening her eyes, Annie raises her head and listens, but she doesn’t hear anything. The house is quiet with that subtle absence of sound that means she’s the only one in it. Frowning, she flings the sheets off and swings her legs over the side of the bed, gingerly setting her bare feet down on the cool tile floor.

A few minutes later, showered and dressed, she heads into the kitchen to make a cup of tea. She can’t say she isn’t disappointed at Finnick’s disappearance — it’s her birthday, after all — but Mags had asked him to help her with some repairs to her roof after last week’s storm, so she thinks that must be where he’s gone.

Winding her still-wet hair into a twist at the nape of her neck, Annie grabs a pencil on the way past the telephone stand and stabs it into the knot to hold it in place. A quick glance at the notepad they always keep there tells her that Finnick didn’t leave a note. Lifting the kettle from the stove, she pads over to the sink to fill it with water, but something hanging over the sink, perfectly framed by the window, distracts her.

Setting the kettle on the counter, a smile slowly spreading across her face, Annie reaches up and removes the delicate woven bracelet from the light fixture over the sink. She laughs in delight when she sees a matching necklace hanging from the roof of the porch, right over the steps that lead down to the beach. Her tea forgotten, lacy bracelet in hand, she heads out the back door into the sunny spring morning.

The necklace dangling from the porch roof leads to a longer, thicker piece of woven lace, matching in pattern and color, lying in a straight line that points toward the beach below. Annie snatches that up, too, and follows the trail Finnick left her, made of lengths of hand-woven rope and thin, supple cords braided into more bracelets and necklaces. She finds the last of them — or at least she hopes it’s the last or she won’t be able to carry them all — draped across the outcropping of rock that divides the bay that houses the Victors’ Village from the smaller, more secluded cove beyond.

"I’m going to make you pay for this, Finnick Odair!" she calls to him, certain that he’s waiting on the other side of the outcrop that she’ll have to either swim around or climb over. She’s not dressed for either, nor is she at all sure she could deal with even that brief swim, but she can’t resist the mystery of whatever he has planned for her this morning. What might be a cheekily whistled tune or just the morning breeze dancing over holes in the rocks and making them sing is the only answer to her challenge and Annie begins to climb.

Clinging to hand- and toe-holds in the rock, Annie makes her way around to the other side, and while she doesn’t see Finnick there, she does see evidence that he’s been there. An old blue blanket is spread out on the sand above the high tide line. In the middle of it is a basket that most likely holds food, given the plates, the glasses, the bottle of wine laid out on the blanket beside the basket. Shaking her head. but still grinning at the sight, Annie jumps the last couple of feet toward the beach, sinking in as she lands.

"Finnick! You can stop hiding. I know you’re here." But again, her only response is the breeze and song of the waves, not even the bit of whistled tune she heard before. With a put-upon sigh, she lets the bits of rope and cord that led her here fall and kneels down on the blanket to rummage through the basket, her stomach abruptly growling as the scent of Mags’ spicy chicken and dirty rice greets her.

It isn’t until she reaches the bottom of the basket that she feels his presence behind her; his shadow falls across her as her hand falls on a box inside the basket. He kisses the point of her bare shoulder as he drops down to sit on the blanket beside her, reaching past her hip to gather up the pieces of the trail he’d made her. His arm brushes against her thigh and she shivers.

Leaving the box in the basket, Annie shifts until she’s facing him. Plucking from his fingers the bracelet she’d found first, she reaches up to plant a kiss on his chin. “Please?” She holds out the bracelet and her right wrist and he obliges her by tying the pretty bit of rope around it.

"Where did all these come from?" she asks, stroking a fingertip along the cord.

"I had to do something to keep myself out of trouble.” He doesn’t go into further detail and she doesn’t ask. She knows what he does when he’s in the Capitol, knows that he sometimes has to do whatever he can to distract himself from it. To distance himself. And none of that has a place here. Not today. She forces herself to smile at him and he answers that smile with a kiss, salty and sweet, and then he pulls back before it can escalate into something more.

"Happy birthday," he tells her with a breathy voice and a sunny grin. He reaches past her once more and pulls the little box from the basket, placing it in her hand. "Open it." He nods toward the box, wrapped in purple and green satin with a bright yellow satin ribbon.

Half afraid something will jump out at her, she unties the ribbon and opens the box. Nestled inside is something wrapped in midnight velvet, and although she wants to rip it all open to see what’s inside, Finnick is practically vibrating with excitement beside her, almost as anxious for her ot see this gift as she is, so she takes her time.

"Stop torturing me, woman. Just open it already."

Laughing, she relents. Inside the soft velvet is a seahorse rising from a sea of kelp, carved of a pale yellow wood in exquisite detail. A soft “Oh…” escapes her and she looks up at Finnick.

"Blight, one of the victors from Seven, carved it for me. He offered to stain it all sorts of bright colors for you, but I thought just this once you might like it better the way it is."

"Oh, Finnick, it’s perfect."

When he kisses her again, neither one of them pulls back.


	65. Aggravation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The prompt was "Cashmere - aggravated"

"Unbelievable!"

Gloss caught the door before it slammed shut in his face and followed his sister into the District 1 suites. Closing the door gently, he turned to face Cashmere, making mental note that everyone else had already disappeared into their rooms.

"What’s unbelievable?" he asked, watching her strip off the glittering gold dress with complete unconcern that he was watching.

Kicking the dress aside, she jerked her fingers through her hair, ripping out the pins that held it piled atop her head; he winced, wondering how much hair came out with those pins. Dressed only in silky, barely there underwear, Cashmere stood in the center of the room - the center of her universe, he thought idly, and maybe of his, too - arms akimbo and blue eyes flashing.

"Those ridiculous children from Twelve!" Gloss merely raised one perfect eyebrow, knowing she’d explain eventually. When he didn’t ask what she meant, Cash rolled her eyes and relaxed her pose, bending to pick up the dress.

"Leave it," he told her. "An Avox will take care of it."

She shot him a look as she picked up her gold shoes, holding them by their stiletto heels. “I am not going to make someone else clean up my mess.” She stared at the shoes, worth six months’ wages back home in 1. “Especially not someone who doesn’t deserve it.” Gloss knew she wasn’t referring to the clean up.

She laid the dress and shoes on a nearby ottoman and bent to pick up hairpins from the floor. He joined her and they retrieved them in silence until she broke it with a sigh.

"None of us deserves this," she said, and Gloss realized there were tears in her eyes. Turning those eyes on him, she whispered, "I don’t want to die."

He wiped the tears from her flawless cheek with the pad of his thumb. “No.”

"And I don’t want you to die," she continued, a hitch in her voice.

"That makes two of us."

She snorted at that. “What are we going to do, Gloss?”

He shifted until he was sitting on the floor and pulled her into his arms. She laid her head on his shoulder. “We do what we have to do,” he told her and she squeezed his arm almost to the point of pain, He didn’t say aloud that if it came down to just the two of them, she would be the one to walk out of the arena a second time, but they both heard the words anyway.


	66. Nightmares in the Ocean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Annie soothing Finnick's nightmares in the ocean.

She finds him sitting on the beach with his bare feet in the water; she says his name to make sure he knows she’s there and then lays a gentle hand on his shoulder, leaves it there as she walks around him. Without a word, she draws him up to his feet and leads him unresisting further into the lapping waves, her dress clinging to her legs like seaweed as the sand undulates beneath their feet. When they’re in water up to his waist, Annie holds wraps her arms around him and presses her cheek against the cool skin of his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart as she tells him, “You’re home, Finnick, and I won’t let the nightmares take you while you’re here.”


	67. Looking for Me, Old Man?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hayhannah, if they were in the final battle?

"Keep going, Katniss!" Haymitch shouts even as he checks his pack for more ammunition. "I’ll hold them off as long as I can!" He watches as she and the others run into the Capitol street, dodging the areas they know to be filled with deadly pods, searching for a slender young woman with dark hair just starting to grow back in.

"Looking for me, Old Man?" Johanna asks from behind and he whirls.

"You can’t be here," he tells her before he thinks better of it, sure that his heart is audible in his voice and visible in his eyes.

She reaches up and runs the back of her hand over his stubbled cheek as she tells him, “What? And leave you here alone to have all the fun?”


	68. First Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> when you get time, could you maybe do a fic about Annie and Finnicks first time?

Finnick wakes abruptly to an unfamiliar weight and heat against his left side. His eyes fly open to darkness, his heart pounding, blood racing. Warm breath caresses bare skin and he holds himself rigid against the urge to shiver. Or to flee. He never sleeps with his clients.

Whose bed is this?

Through the silence he smells the sea, hears the waves breaking against the shore in the not too far distance, feels cooler air dance with warm, none of it artificial, and, incrementally, he allows his muscles to relax. He starts to breathe again.

This isn’t the Capitol. He’s not with a client, didn’t fall asleep, breaking his own rules and Snow’s to never let a patron see the other side of a victor’s life, the unguarded moments when the arena might slip through. It’s only then that it occurs to him it wasn’t a nightmare that woke him. For the first time in months, maybe years, there were no nightmares.

I’m home. Moving carefully, he shifts toward the edge of the bed.

“Finnick? Is something wrong?” Her voice is rough with sleep, and it sends a frisson of desire burning over his skin. Annie.

“I was trying not to wake you.” No longer trying not to disturb her, he rolls onto his side, facing her and reaches out to gently run his fingers through her hair. She smiles, her teeth pale against her lips, her eyes glittering in the moonlight filtering through the open drapes. Giving in to that desire, feeling oddly unsure of himself, he leans in closer and kisses her slowly. She tastes just as salty-sweet as she had earlier, after they’d finally eaten their meal of slightly overcooked gumbo and accidentally garlicky seaweed bread.

“I was already awake,” she murmurs against his lips.

He rolls onto his back again, pulling her on top of him and resting his arms over the small of her back. “Nightmare?”

She shakes her head, her hair falling around his face in a soft curtain. “I’m just not used to sharing a bed with anyone.”

He snorts and tightens his arms around her. “Neither am I. Snow—”

Annie cuts him off with a hard kiss before he can say more. When she pulls back, she tells him, “There’s no room for him here, Finnick.” A quick kiss, softer this time. “Not in our bedroom.” And another. “Not in our house.” And another, not so quick. “Not in our life.”

When she drops her head to kiss him again, he stops her, running a finger along her lips. “I like the sound of that.”

Tilting her head to the side, she asks, “The sound of what?”

He smiles up at her. He never wanted to share his life with anyone before her. “Our. Ours. Yours and mine.” He never wants to leave this place, and that has nothing to do with their physical location. “Something that belongs only to us,” he whispers, and when she tries to kiss him again, he lets her.


	69. I Have to Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 3 Sentence Prompt: Finnick's thoughts right before he leaves Annie for his final battle.

He breathes in the rise and fall of her chest as she sleeps, the curve of her cheek, the soft curl that escaped the tangle of her hair. She is everything to him and even now, even as he prepares to leave her yet again, maybe for forever, he can’t believe how lucky he is. Dropping to his knees beside their bed, he strokes that stray strand of hair from her face and kisses her softly on the lips, whispering, “Annie, I have to go.”


	70. Mine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Annie is pregnant and gives birth while Finnick is the arena for the Quarter Quell, and President Snow forces Finnick to listen to her screams via the jabberjays.

"Ah, Heavensbee, I’m glad you called," the president begins with a note of glee - a bone chilling sound - in his voice, "I have just the thing for your jabberjays…"

*

The first scream stops Finnick in his tracks and all but stops his heart in his chest; the ones that follow send him to his knees as Annie’s voice, filled with agony and terror in equal measure, surrounds him, holds him prisoner in a cell made of sound as her screams stretch on and on until his own voice joins hers, begging for it to stop. He almost misses it when the baby - his and Annie’s - wails its first breath, followed by a man;s laughter, malevolent and mocking that resolves into one word repeated over and over again: “Mine.”


	71. Saplings and Toast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hayanna, toasting and whatever District 7 does?

Neither of them wants anything big or fancy - they’ve both had more than enough of spectacle and unwelcome attention since they became victors - so when they marry, it’s just the two of them, combining the traditions of their respective districts.

Haymitch leads her to a clearing in the woods behind their home and together they build a small fire and toast bread, fighting off his damn geese the entire time. Once they feed each other toast that’s burned on one side and perfect on the other - kinda like the two of us, Johanna thinks, smiling slightly at Haymitch as she bites down on the crunchy bread - they return to their backyard and, still together and still shooing away geese, dig a hole for the River Birch sapling they’d chosen to represent the beginning of their new life and a washing away of the pain that came before.


	72. I Thought You Were Dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt - Odesta, I thought you were dead.

“I thought you were dead.” Finnick’s voice is harsh, cracked at the edges. He pushes Annie back, away, but doesn’t let go of her arms as he looks at her. There is a frantic light in the green of his eyes, so quickly masked she isn’t sure it was really there. Before she can say anything, he pulls her into his arms again and she feels safe for the first time in days weeks months.

“I was with Cali,” she tells him, her voice mushy sounding, muffled against his chest. She has to spit out the silk of his dress shirt. “He showed me the quarry.”

She knows she shouldn’t have left 2′s Victors’ Village, but ever since her victory tour began, she’s been surrounded by people, all of them wanting something from her, never letting her have any time to herself. No time to think. No time to breathe. No time to be. It was too much. She was drowning. Drowning. Drowning.

It was after midnight when she woke from another nightmare. She’d left her room, and when she heard voices, she’d gone the other way. Borrowing a heavy winter coat and scarf from a hook by the door, she’d left the house, gone outside into the thin, cold air to look at the stars. They’d glittered and danced, far brighter than she ever remembered seeing them back home. She didn’t know how long she’d watched them, but when she’d smelled the wood smoke drift in from somewhere in the woods to the south of the village, she’d followed it.

The smoke had led her to an old man sitting next to a campfire. He’d been whittling a piece of wood, whistling a broken and aimless tune. Annie had stopped short of the circle of light surrounding his fire, but the old man had known she was there anyway.

“Come in near the warmth, little fish girl,” he said. His knife never stopped moving. “I’m Caligula, but most just call me Cali.” When she’d stepped in closer to the fire, close enough to feel its breath on her cheeks, he’d shifted to the left on his rock. “Sit, child,” he’d invited. Annie sat. And still his knife moved, snick snick snick.

Neither of them had spoken. The fire fell in on itself, sending a spiral of orange sparks into the air.

“I killed more than a dozen, you know,” Caligula told her. Snick snick snick. “Fish in a barrel.” He glanced slyly at her and giggled at his joke. Snick snick. Blowing on his carving, he showed it to her, an exquisitely carved fish tail, complete with delicate scales and ribbed fins. “Take it.” She took it. As soon as she held it in her hands, she knew he had carved it from bone, not wood.

“You’re a victor, aren’t you?” she’d asked and again, Cali giggled.

“Are you afraid of me, fish girl?” he’d asked, once the giggles had left him.

“No,” she’d told him truthfully.

He’d harrumphed at her, then rose to put more wood on the fire. When he sat back down, knife still in hand, he’d said, “You should be.” He studied the knife, held it up so the fire’s light flowed along the blade. “I only killed ten in their damned arena.”

Finnick’s arms tighten around her, pulling her back and anchoring her in the here and now. “Annie, the other victors sent him away to keep you safe.” His words tickle, spoken into her hair.

“He won the year after Mags,” Annie says. “He killed ten.”

“Ten in the Games, and three more since.” He pulls back to look at her again. “One of them a victor on his victory tour.” Finnick tucks a stray lock of hair behind her left ear. “When Enobaria told me where you probably were… Well. I thought you were dead.”

“Cali gave me this.” She holds up the fish tail. “He said I should be afraid of him, but I’m not.” Moving closer to Finnick, to his warmth, Annie shivers. “I’m a killer too.”


	73. Hiding From the World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Annie & Finnick....“Have I entered an alternate universe or did you really just crack a smile for me?”

After the return to District 4, after the parties, after being on display like a precocious zoo animal for weeks, Annie… slipped. Physically, she was fine. She went through the motions, getting up in the morning, nibbling at some breakfast when Mags or Angel or Finnick pestered her into it. She ate when she was told. She dressed when she was told. She answered when someone spoke to her, though her answers tended to be monosyllabic more often than not. But something inside her had slid back down into that dark and murky place she’d been when she first came home from the Games.

Finnick hated seeing her like that again. He’d come to know her, at least a little, in the days between the Games and her tour, had learned more about who Annie was on the train between districts as they’d played cards or chess or simply described for each other the things that caught their eye through the windows of the train. In the days following her tour, he came to miss her quick and whimsical sense of humor.

Day after day, he’d watch her walk the beach, always either looking down at the sand or out toward the open sea. She didn’t collect shells or rocks. She didn’t splash in the water. She never looked up at the sky. She simply walked. Sometimes, she’d add a little variety to her day and sit instead of walk. When she did that, she always looked out at the water. Maybe she watched the birds wheeling and diving, occasionally squabbling over a fish or a piece of seaweed, but part of him thought that maybe she didn’t even see that, focused as she was inside herself.

The fourth day, when Finnick saw Annie sitting on the beach with nothing but a short-sleeved shirt on a cold, gray, blustery morning, he grabbed one of his sweaters and took it down to where she sat. He didn’t drape it over her shoulders right away; rather, he dropped to the sand beside her, but not so close as to frighten her if she hadn’t heard him coming. Something loosened inside him, letting him breathe a little easier when she accepted the sweater and pulled it over her head, slipping her arms into the too-long sleeves without a word or a change of expression. She wasn’t lost, like she’d been six months ago, just hiding. He could handle hiding. Hiding from the world while sitting right there in front of it, center stage, was something he’d become an expert at in the last few years.

The next day it rained, but that didn’t stop Annie from walking along the beach. It was much warmer than it had been the day before. She didn’t wear a coat or a hat or carry an umbrella, but she did wear Finnick’s sweater. Again, she said nothing when he joined her, but neither did she push him away. He took it as a win.

When they went back to her house, the lights were on and there was a pot of gumbo on the stove, courtesy of Mags, but the old woman was nowhere to be found. Glancing out the kitchen window as he poured a couple of bowls of the rich, spicy stew, he saw Mags in her kitchen; she waved and he held up the bowls for her to see that he and Annie were about to eat.

The day after that was another sit-on-the-beach day. It wasn’t cool enough for the sweater, but neither was it warm enough for shorts and short sleeves. There were high, fluffy clouds drifting across the pale blue winter sky and Finnick flopped backward on the sand, facing toward Annie, his head near the water. He hoped that if the tide rose far enough to lap at his hair, she would at least give him a kick to warn him.

He lay there on the cool sand and told her stories about the clouds. Described the shapes of them in as over-the-top and silly a way as he could, creating for her fluffy puppies and enormous yachts and long, thin dinosaurs. After a time, he realized she was no longer looking out to sea or inside herself; she was watching him. He told her a story of a troll who lived in the clouds, chasing away the gulls who tried to steal from his garden and watched her lips twitched and she bit her lower lip to make it stop. Her green eyes sparked with suppressed laughter.

Finally, stopping in mid-sentence, he sat up and glared at her. “Have I entered an alternate universe or did you really just crack a smile for me?”

She smiled at him then, the sun coming out from behind one of the high, fluffy clouds.


	74. Just Once

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Odesta + "just once"

"Just once, I wish you could stay.”

Annie’s quiet words stopped Finnick in his tracks. He wanted to stay. In fact, to stay here with her was _all_ he wanted, all he had _ever_ wanted. But he had learned long ago that wanting and wishing were useless things. Worse than that, wanting and wishing were weapons in Snow’s cold, dry hands.

Finnick rapped his knuckles on the door jamb, once, twice, and then turned to face Annie, carefully controlling his expression so she wouldn’t see the turmoil of emotions boiling beneath the surface. Hatred, anger, self-loathing. They were all there inside him in varying degrees, but fear was the one constant he couldn’t escape. Fear of Snow hurting his family. Fear of what Snow could make him do to keep them safe. But most of all, the all-consuming fear of what that snake could - would - do to Annie if Finnick stepped out of line.

“Annie, you know I can’t.”

She hadn’t moved from the center of their bed. Wearing nothing but one of his old t-shirts and the sheets pooled around her legs, her glorious hair tumbling over her shoulders in a rich cascade, sea green eyes shining bright with unshed tears, he saw that same fear in her, threatening to pull her under, to drag her down into the murky depths, just as it did him every day.

“I know, Finnick.” Somehow she gave him a smile that pushed back the darkness. It was something he could take with him to the Capitol, that smile, something that even Snow couldn’t take away. “But just once, I wish you could."


	75. Purified

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Odesta - Purified

She can’t stand seeing him like this, a shell of the man she loves, wandering the house aimlessly when he’s awake, violently restless when he’s asleep only to wake screaming, sometimes incoherently and others just a single word. “Annie!”

When he told her about why he spends so much time in the Capitol, everything shifted in their relationship. It frightens her just how protective she feels about him now. It hurts her that they - the nameless, faceless Captolites that use him - hurt him so much that it even haunts his dreams. She knows about haunting dreams. She knows that it’s not all about what they do to him in the Capitol, that it’s the faces, voices, lives of those kids he killed in the arena, but when he wakes screaming her name, that’s not the arena. At least, not the one he left years ago.

Annie sees Finnick standing on their porch, barefoot and with his shirt unbuttoned, flapping in the breeze flowing in from the sea. To anyone else, it would look like he watched a Capitol cruise ship far out on the water, bringing in a group of tourists all wanting to see the legendary beaches of District 4 and hoping for a glimpse of her most famous - infamous - victor. All Annie sees is the man she loves lost and in pain.

Walking with determination, she heads out onto the porch and takes him by the hand in passing; reflexively, he shifts in her grip until he can twine his fingers with hers as she drags him down the steps and onto the sand.

There’s another thing Annie knows as well as she knows about dreams. Saltwater, warm and feeling like silk against her skin, purifies. It washes away the blood and the fear and the pain, if only for a little while.

“What are you doing?” Finnick asks her, bemused, as they splash into the saltwater.

Turning toward him, slowing, she bites her lower lip before answering. His eyes fix on her mouth, his expression turning hungry for a moment before he turns his head and looks away. Annie stops walking, the waves swirling around their bare legs high enough that the hems of their shorts are soaked. She reaches up and gently turns Finnick’s head to face her again.

“Always remember that I love you, Finnick Odair, and that you are mine, not theirs.”

The ghost of a smile twitches at his lips as she grabs both of his wrists. Using the element of surprise and all her strength, Annie jerks her love forward as she falls backward, taking him with her laughing into the cleansing, purifying sea.


	76. Feel the Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Odesta - “We’re in the middle of a thunderstorm and you wanna stop and feel the rain?”

The rain came down in sheets, pounding into the beach so hard it sent up tiny geysers of sand to strike her ankles. A streak of lightning, jagged, blindingly bright, connected sea and sky for less than a heartbeat, and before that heartbeat became the next, she felt a sharp crack of thunder deep in her bones. Instead of running for shelter, Annie closed her eyes and lifted her face to the pounding rain.

“Annie!” Finnick called, but she didn’t respond. “Come inside!” She didn’t want to be inside, trapped by a roof and four walls. No. She wanted to be here, surrounded by everything but free. The rain, the lightning, the thunder, they all washed away the stench of death that clung to her. She’d thought she’d never feel this again.

“Annie, it’s storming,” Finnick said from only a few inches behind her. “Come inside where it’s dry.” Concern laced his voice.

Smiling, Annie lowered her face and turned toward him. He stood there with his umbrella in t-shirt and shorts and bare feet, mostly dry, entirely beautiful. “I don’t want to go inside.” She raised her arms and twirled, her soaked skirt slapping against her legs and sticking there when she stopped. “I want to feel the rain!”

Another flash of lightning. Thunder boomed overhead. The rain continued to fall, unabated. Laughing, she spun again. She thought she heard Finnick sigh; she most definitely heard a snap and a click. And then he grabbed both her hands in his and the two of them spun together like children, laughing as the rain fell and washed them both clean.


	77. You're an Idiot and I Love You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Odesta - “Wait a minute. Are you jealous?”

It took almost an hour to find him, and she wouldn’t have without Katniss’ help. The girl had told her about the abandoned sections of the district, but she couldn’t tell her exactly where Finnick might have gone, because there were just too many places to hide. Annie got the feeling Katniss wouldn’t have told exactly where to find him, anyway, but that just made Annie like her more.

He sat in an abandoned supply closet, the fifth one she tried. He sat in the dark, a length of rope in his hands. He knew the motions of the knots by heart; his muscles themselves knew the motions, he had worked them so many times. Annie knew him. Something had hurt him, because that’s when he disappeared with his ropes and his demons.

He didn’t look up when she opened the door, letting in what little light the dim lighting in the corridor provided, didn’t stop working his knots, but he did lean into her when she sat. Good. She wasn’t the one who had hurt him then. She leaned her head on his shoulder.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked. His fingers stilled for a moment but then started working again, faster than before. Kissing his jaw, rough with stubble on her lips, she laid a hand lightly on his wrist, feeling the muscles flexing and relaxing with each movement. “Please, Finnick, let me help.”

Finnick looked at her then, his eyes picking up just enough of the light reflected from the hallway that she could see a hint of green. “You care about him.” Nothing else, just that one simple statement, but she heard pain in his voice, pain and uncertainty. And she couldn’t for the life of her think of who he was talking about.

“Finnick...” she started but he stopped her.

“Peeta. I saw you together.” His voice was a rough as his jawline. A sharp tug on the rope and the knots disappeared. Looking back down, he began to work new ones.

She had seen Peeta in the cafeteria, eating with his guards, his hands uncuffed. It was the first time she had seen him in days, since she had been released from the hospital wing, and even there he had been under guard and restrained. Laughing with pleasure at the sight of Peeta looking so much more like the young man she had first met, Annie had taken her tray to eat her lunch with him and his guards. Finnick must have seen them talking, but why had it sent him running away like this?

“Wait a minute. Are you jealous?” She stared at him in the gloom.

He stopped tying knots, but he didn’t look up. “Maybe.” That one little word sounded very small.

Annie nipped at his ear and took his rope away. “Idiot,” she told him and began to work her own series of knots. Finnick watched her in silence, and when she tied the rope bracelet around his wrist, he lifted her hand to kiss her knuckles.

“I love you, Annie Cresta. Please don’t leave me.”

“You’re an idiot, Finnick Odair, and I won’t ever leave.”


	78. Almost Happy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Odesta prompt: Canon, a happy moment six months after Annie's Games.

Annie looked up when Finnick leaned over her to thrust the curtains aside, letting in the early morning sun. “What are you doing?” she asked as he fiddled with the locks on the window, still leaning over her. He smelled of cinnamon. She closed her eyes against the light and against him noticing how she reveled in being so close to him.

“We’re almost home, Annie.” He shove the window up and the wind of the train’s passage washed over them, bringing with it the smell of the sea.

Home. Clean salt water. Sand everywhere, even places you didn’t want it to be. Welcoming sunshine in spite of the chill in the winter air; it was always so much warmer in District 4 than in the Capitol

“Why is that?” she asked Finnick.

He sat beside her, looking at her oddly, and she realized what she’d done. “Why is what?”

Heat rose in her cheeks. She turned to face that chilly breeze and the brightening morning sun. “Why is always so much warmer here than it is in the Capitol?” She didn’t explain what she meant by that, because obviously, it wasn’t objectively true, but he understood her all the same.

Stretching his long legs out in front of him, Finnick leaned back, laying his right arm along the back of the seat, warm where he touched her neck and shoulders. “It’s warmer at home because it’s home. People love us here. We can just be ourselves here. Mostly.”

Nodding, Annie leaned into his side, still watching the scenery fly by. In the distance, she could see a fishing boat out on the water. “Do I have to go back there, Finnick?”

“Not if I can help it.”

She smiled to herself, a feeling of contentment growing inside her as they drew closer to leaving the train and the Capitol behind.


	79. Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Odesta for etherealfinnick, who wanted fluff. I'm not sure this is it, but I tried.

When Finnick arrives home after three weeks in the Capitol, all he can think of is seeing Annie again. The moment he walks through the door, he drops his suitcase in the foyer and calls her name. He hadn’t told her that he was coming home, mostly because he hadn’t known himself; when the opportunity had arisen, he’d jumped at the chance.

“Annie!” he calls again. “I’m home!”

The house is silent. Nothing but the tick tock of the ornate grandfather clock across from the front door, carved wood mermaids and dolphins, inlaid with mother of pearl as well as a microphone and a pin-sized camera trained on the front door. Snow likes to keep an eye on his victors.

“Annie?”

A quick circuit of the house confirms that she isn’t there. Picking up the phone in the kitchen, he tries to call Mags, but there’s no dial tone. That isn’t particularly unusual; the phones on the island seem to work most reliably right before the Games, which are a good three months away. Heading out the kitchen door, Finnick heads toward Mags’ house at a jog, not caring that his expensive Capitol shoes might be damaged by the salty sand of the beach and the path that more or less connects the victors’ houses.

As usual, Mags’ back door isn’t locked. Finnick pushes in and calls out, “Mags! Have you seen Annie? She’s not–” He stops abruptly at the sight of his mentor holding a finger to her lips and then pointing toward the living room. Finnick toes his shoes off and pads across her kitchen floor in sock feet.

Annie is curled up, asleep, on Mags’ couch, her hair a tumble of waves over her face and shoulders. There’s a quilt covering her and a half-empty cup of tea on the table in front of her. Finnick looks from Annie to Mags.

“She had a rough night. She ran here this morning to escape her ghosts, as she put it.” At the look of concern on Finnick’s face, she reaches up to pat his cheek. “She’s fine, boy.”

Mags takes him by the hand and leads him back into the kitchen, settling him into a chair while she puts the kettle on for hot water. He watches her bustle about the kitchen for a moment, although more than half his attention is on the living room and the woman asleep there on the couch.

When Mags sets a cup of steaming tea in front of him before pulling out a chair for herself, Finnick asks, “What caused the nightmares? Did she say?”

A snort of laughter and Mags says, “She didn’t say, hijo, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure it out. She saw you with the Cranes on television last night.”

Heat rises in his cheeks and he lifts his tea, blowing on it to cover his embarrassment. Seneca Crane had been rising in the ranks of Gamemakers for years, with both Finnick’s and Annie’s Games included in the announcement the night before of his promotion to Head Gamemaker for the upcoming 74th Games. The 70th Games had featured some deadly “ghosts” that had resembled banshees.

“Mags?” Annie’s voice calling from the living room sounded rough with sleep.

Finnick pushed back from the table, his tea forgotten. He was just turning toward the door when Annie appeared in the doorway, the quilt wrapped around her shoulders and trailing across the floor. She stopped just inside the kitchen. Her eyes widened. A smile spread across her face as she dropped the quilt, hopping over it as she called his name.

They crashed together in the middle of Mags’ kitchen. Finnick’s arms closed around Annie’s waist and he lifted her from the floor, spinning her around, both of them laughing. He had a glimpse of Mags smiling face just before the old woman turned and walked out her back door, giving them a moment of privacy.

“I missed you so much,” Annie whispered into his ear, her breath tickling.

“I missed you too,” he said, his voice becoming muffled as he nuzzled at her neck. “But I’m home now.” He reached up to smooth a lock of unruly hair out of her eyes. “I’m home.”


	80. (things you didn’t say at all)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Odesta, sometime during Mockingjay

Annie stares unseeing at Johanna and Haymitch. Her mind can’t process what they’ve just told her. Or rather, it can process the words; she just can’t believe they’re true.

Surrounded by a fog of gray, words - other words - swirl in her head. Things she never told him. Things that maybe she should have said.

 _It doesn’t matter what they did to you._ (It did matter. It mattered so very much.)

 _You’re perfect in my eyes._ (He was never perfect. He would have laughed so hard if she had ever told him so. For that alone, maybe she should have told him.)

 _I would kill them all for hurting you._ (That’s more something Johanna would say, but it doesn’t stop Annie from feeling it.)

 _I’m pregnant._ (That last set of words makes all the others fade into insignificance. She should have told him. He deserved to know. She hadn’t said anything because she didn’t want to distract him. She’ll live with that regret for the rest of her days.)


	81. (things you said that i wish you hadn’t)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Odesta, the prompt is the title of this chapter

Annie sits on the beach, the sand warm under her bare feet, the light of the setting sun still warm against her face, her arms where they wrap around her knees. Even the breeze off the water, caressing her face, plucking strands of hair and sending them flying, tickling where they light against her skin, even that breeze is warm. It isn’t even summer yet.

But Annie is cold. She buries her face between her knees, cutting off the blinding sunlight. She wishes she could cut off the memory of the things Finnick had told her just the day before. It’s been less than twenty-four hours, yet her life has been shaken to the core again, just as thoroughly as it had been when the hovercraft pulled her from the floodwaters.

_Snow sells me, Annie. He sells me, and there’s nothing I can do but obey. It’s not that he’ll hurt me if I don’t do what he wants, what they want. He’ll hurt my family. He already has._

After the glow had faded from him telling her he loved her, the rest of what he’d told her began to sink in. She’d cried herself to sleep last night. It wasn’t the first time that had happened, and she’s sure it won’t be the last, but it was the first time it hadn’t been a selfish thing. She’d cried for Finnick, not for herself.

She hears the susurrus of footsteps on the sand behind her, feels his heat when he drops down beside her. The side where Finnick sits is the only part of her that feels anything like warm. He doesn’t say anything right away. They sit beside each other in silence, drinking in the salty breeze, the heat of the dying sun, the cooling sand, the raucous song of the gulls.

“Penny for your thoughts?” he finally says, breaking the silence with a saying as old as the Dark Days. Older.

“They’re not worth a penny.” Annie doesn’t raise her head, so her voice is muffled.

Finnick bumps his shoulder against hers. “I can’t believe that.” She hears the smile in his voice, but it just breaks her heart more, that he can still be whole himself after what’s been done to him.

“Part of me wishes you’d never told me,” she says to the sand between her feet before her brain can stop her mouth, but then, having said the words, she looks up. There’s a guarded look in his beautiful green eyes that she put there. For a moment, she hates herself for it. “I wish you’d never said anything, but I’m glad you told me.” The guarded look fades. His gaze locks on hers even as she searches the planes and lines, the curves and shadows of his face. She’s in uncharted waters. “I’m glad you trust me with that. I never want to hurt you, Finnick.”

He smiles in truth, then, lighting up his face. He pulls her up against his side, puts his arm around her shoulders. Annie feels it like an electrical jolt even as she sinks into his side. Looking out over the water, he says, “Pain’s inevitable, Annie. Some of it’s worse than others.” He rests his cheek against her hair. “I know you’ll never deliberately hurt me. I can’t ask for more than that.” His voice, his words resonate through Annie and her heart breaks all over again.


	82. (things you said that i wasn’t meant to hear)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Odesta, things you said that made me feel like shit

It’s not that Annie intends to listen in on the conversation; it just kind of happens. One moment, she’s jogging up the steps to Mags’ porch, ready to knock on the door before she goes in - Mags’ home is open to any victor on the island who wants to talk or have cookies or a cup of tea, so long as they understand she might put them to work - the next she has her back to the wall between the open window and the kitchen door. Her hand raised, she hears her name. She drops her hand, unconsciously bunching the fabric of her thin shirt between her fingers.

Annie can’t make out what Mags says, but Finnick’s words are clear; there’s such pain in his voice. “She’s so fragile right now, Mags. Damaged in ways I just can’t deal with.”

Her breath catches in her throat. Her fist tightens on the hem of her shirt as she presses back against the wall, willing herself to not make a noise. She knows she shouldn’t listen any longer, knows that she shouldn’t have stopped to listen at all, but she can’t make feet move, can’t make herself push away from the wooden planks of the wall.

Mags says something to him, her tone pitched to soothe, the cadence of her words meant to calm. But that’s all she can hear, none of the words. She must have her back to the window. Finnick obviously faces it.

“Don’t you think I know that, Mags? And what if I do? The way she is right now, she’ll just fall apart, and that’ll be on me.” The scrape of a chair across the kitchen floor. The clunk of something as one of them sets it on table or countertop. Finnick’s voice is louder, clearer as it comes to Annie directly from the kitchen window beside her. “No. I can’t do this.” He sounds determined. Implacable. “I don’t want anything to do with Annie Cresta.”

Pain slices through Annie like a knife. She closes her eyes against tears that burn but won’t fall. She hears it when her shirt tears under the pressure of her fingers. Finnick is still talking when Annie finally finds the strength to push away from the wall and run back down the steps to the beach below. It isn’t until hours later that his words tear through the wall of hurt.

“I can’t afford to fall in love with her, Mags! What am I going to do?”


	83. Accidental Eavesdropping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Odesta - (things you said that made me feel like shit; things you said that i wasn’t meant to hear)

It’s not that Annie intends to listen in on the conversation; it just kind of happens. One moment, she’s jogging up the steps to Mags’ porch, ready to knock on the door before she goes in - Mags’ home is open to any victor on the island who wants to talk or have cookies or a cup of tea, so long as they understand she might put them to work - the next she has her back to the wall between the open window and the kitchen door. Her hand raised, she hears her name. She drops her hand, unconsciously bunching the fabric of her thin shirt between her fingers.

Annie can’t make out what Mags says, but Finnick’s words are clear; there’s such pain in his voice. “She’s so fragile right now, Mags. Damaged in ways I just can’t deal with.”

Her breath catches in her throat. Her fist tightens on the hem of her shirt as she presses back against the wall, willing herself to not make a noise. She knows she shouldn’t listen any longer, knows that she shouldn’t have stopped to listen at all, but she can’t make feet move, can’t make herself push away from the wooden planks of the wall.

Mags says something to him, her tone pitched to soothe, the cadence of her words meant to calm. But that’s all she can hear, none of the words. She must have her back to the window. Finnick obviously faces it.

“Don’t you think I know that, Mags? And what if I do? The way she is right now, she’ll just fall apart, and that’ll be on me.” The scrape of a chair across the kitchen floor. The clunk of something as one of them sets it on table or countertop. Finnick’s voice is louder, clearer as it comes to Annie directly from the kitchen window beside her. “No. I can’t do this.” He sounds determined. Implacable. “I don’t want anything to do with Annie Cresta.”

Pain slices through Annie like a knife. She closes her eyes against tears that burn but won’t fall. She hears it when her shirt tears under the pressure of her fingers. Finnick is still talking when Annie finally finds the strength to push away from the wall and run back down the steps to the beach below. It isn’t until hours later that his words tear through the wall of hurt.

“I can’t afford to fall in love with her, Mags! What am I going to do?”


	84. Accident

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Odesta - "I swear it was an accident."

Annie had asked Finnick at least half an hour ago to help her with the spring cleaning, but he was still out on the porch, sprawled across the swing, leafing through a magazine. As the minutes passed and she washed the inside of the windows with soap and water, the angrier she grew. Glancing through the window at him relaxing to the sound of the rain that fell from the gunmetal gray sky, she muttered, “You lazy…” She bit her tongue against finishing the unflattering thought and stabbed her hand into the bucket of cooling soapy water. A glance at it told her she would have to dump it soon and start up a fresh batch to clean the upstairs.

She finished with the window she was on, dried it with the towel that would also soon have to be replaced, and lugged the bucket to the back door. She was so irritated with Finnick that she didn’t even want to walk past him to dump the bucket. She’d just toss the water out from the kitchen door, and if she was lucky, a bit of it would splash him to get his attention.

Opening the back door, she flung the water from the bucket – right into Finnick’s face as he was coming in. With superhuman effort, she kept the bucket from hitting him in the face, too, as he spluttered and wiped dingy, soapy water out of his eyes.

Wide-eyed, Annie stared at him for a heartbeat. Looking as shocked as she felt, he stared back at her.

“I swear it was an accident!” she told him as the bucket clattered to the floor and rolled toward him, stopping when it hit him in the ankle. He just stood there and dripped. A lock of bronze hair, heavy with soapy water, fell into his eyes and he blew upward, trying to blow it away without success.

Unable to help herself, Annie started to laugh.


	85. His Mother's Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Finnick through his mother's eyes - after his 16th birthday..._

She watches her youngest child as he watches the sea, its restless, wind-whipped waves crashing on the beach as they draw closer to his bare feet; he makes no move to escape the chill waters, just watches them roll in as if he waits for them to drag him out to the deep.

President Snow himself had flown Finnick to the Capitol to celebrate his sixteenth birthday, and now he’s home again, but the light inside him, dimmed by the arena, had winked out in the days he’d been away. Her sweet, funny boy is gone, torn from her on a hovercraft’s stunted metal wings, and in his place has been returned this beautiful creature, outwardly polished bright but dead inside.


	86. The Witnessing Sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _There's a line I heard in a soap opera last afternoon and I want a Odesta ficlet with it (three sentence -or not-): "are you proposing?" "yes I am. With the sea as our witness."_

Finnick looks at the necklace in his hands, the slice of conch shell hollowed in ribs and rills, delicately carved and polished, threaded through with a leather thong. _Just to keep it looking masculine_ , he thinks, grinning as he looks at Annie, her beautiful eyes filled with a mixture of anticipation, excitement, and dread all wrapped up in her love for him.

“Are you proposing?” he asks, his heart suddenly threatening to pound its way out of his chest.

“Yes I am,” Annie responds, defiance and determination in her voice. “With the sea as our witness.”

As if on cue, water and seaweed and sand flow over his feet to his ankles, soaking the hems of his jeans, the seaweed stroking his skin before the water pulls it away, before it can remind him too strongly of his arena.

Without saying a word, his gaze never leaving Annie’s eyes, Finnick reaches up and ties the thong around his neck. Thoughts and emotions spinning, he reaches for Annie’s hand and threads his fingers with hers. “I don’t know why you want me, Annie Cresta, but I’m yours.”


	87. Fire at Will

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finnick's broadcast the way it should have been portrayed in the movie.

At the end of the corridor, three Peacekeepers stand between the rescue team and the door to the holding cells, but none of the three pay any attention to their surroundings, instead looking up at a television monitor on the control desk. None of his team can hear the propo as it was deemed too great a distraction to their mission, but Boggs - and the Peacekeepers - hears every word as Finnick Odair spells out for the Capitol all that he has endured for the past ten years. Recalling what he’s seen of Odair in the Capitol, the rapid succession of rumored lovers, and the young man he met in 13, so damaged he hasn’t yet been released from the hospital, Boggs taps his mic and orders, “Fire at will.”


End file.
